


A Distant Refuge

by WritestuffLee



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Angst, BDSM, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-26
Updated: 2007-11-26
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:55:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritestuffLee/pseuds/WritestuffLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Republic and his own apprentice fall, Obi-Wan flees for his life and takes refuge with a man who is more than he seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Distant Refuge

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Predicaments Beyond Our Control](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/21764) by Gloriana. 



> Gorgeous photomanip by Sue Chose This 2008

The place hadn’t changed much. It had been a backwater ten years ago and was still one. And thank the Force for that, though it was something he dare not say aloud. Not anymore. Not if he valued his life.

He’d begun to wonder if he still did, and if so, why.

The few people still on the dirt road that passed for a street eyed him curiously in the twilight but said nothing. Strangers were not unknown here, but were probably still a rare occurrence. Though he hadn’t recently caught more than a distorted glimpse of himself in passing reflective surfaces, he was fairly sure he looked frightful: unkempt, dirty, ragged. Haunted. The shadows might hide some of that, and he was glad for the day’s failing light.

The inn was where he’d left it the last time, smoke from its fire curling into the dusk, carrying the smell of food. His stomach growled loudly at the scent, reminding him he needed to fill it. It had been reminding him for days, to no avail. What coinage and monetary units he still carried were no good here. He’d have to find some odd job to do soon, before he got too weak to earn any that were.

There was more smoke in the air, from the hearth fires along the street, and from other homesteads set back behind those. That wouldn’t help him find what he was looking for. He thought it likely the smithy would be on the edge of town somewhere, with its dangerous forge, but hadn’t passed it on the way in. If it wasn’t to be found on the opposite end, he’d have to stop someone and ask, though it was dangerous to give anyone anything to remember him by these days.

Then there was always the possibility that the man he was looking for was gone, ten years later. There was quite a spread of years between them, he suspected—thirty or thirty-five, though he himself had been a young man when they’d first met. Ten years later, the man who’d called himself smith and carpenter and part-time whore might be dead. _Say to no-one that you’ve been here. It can be a refuge for you, when . . . if the time comes._ Now the time had come, against his own certainty of its unlikeliness, and he needed that refuge, but there was no guarantee it was still to be found here. And if not . . . well. Best to face that when the time came.

The street was longer than he remembered, and the village seemed larger in fact than memory. Not surprising, he supposed, in ten years. And yet it was not very long before the space between the houses and cabins grew and he reached the end of the village where street became road, with no smithy evident. His heart thumped hard in a moment of panic. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm himself. Not time for that, not yet. There were other ways to look, other ways to see, though it would leave him dangerously exposed. He thought he might risk it here, for a brief moment.

So he stood in the shadows just past the last house and, for the first time in longer than he could reckon, opened himself to the Force.

He sensed the life concentrated behind him in the village and scattered in the forest surrounding it, people—mostly humans—winding down for the day and wildlife either waking for the night or bedding down. A burst of laughter echoed up the street from the inn as its door swung open and closed again. A little beyond where he stood now, though, there was something . . . more.

_«Jinn?_ »

There was no answer, but he expected none. Nonetheless, he hefted his too-light pack higher on his shoulder and started farther down the road in front of him. It curved gently south and night deepened around him before a clearing opened to one side, holding a small, snug-looking cabin and two outbuildings, one an open-sided forge, fires banked for the night. On the cabin’s small porch sat a figure in shadow, watching the road. As he approached, the figure got to its feet, looming large in the darkness, one thumb hooked in his belt, the other on the bowl of a pipe he took from between his lips.

“Ben?”

The voice hadn’t changed. Deep and resonant, it sent a chill down his spine, not of fear but relief and, yes, anticipation. He almost laughed.

“Ben?” the man called again, freeing his hand from his belt, reaching to put the pipe down in case he might need his hands—those enormous hands! He’d nearly forgotten how large they were. But not how gentle.

“Yes. It’s Ben,” he said hoarsely, voice rusty with long silence.

Light flared in the man’s hand, moved, blossomed inside a lantern. The lantern rose and he stepped into the circle of light to be seen. The face that greeted him was much the same, perhaps a bit more weathered, but the hair had gone greyer. The expression was a mixture of relief and—what? Not quite pity. Sorrow, perhaps.

“I’d hoped you’d escaped. Hoped you’d remember my words.”

“I hoped you were still here.”

“I am. Come inside, lad. You look all in.”

His stomach chose that moment to complain again, loudly, and the man’s teeth flashed in a grin. “And sound it, too.”

“You may want to hose me off, before you let me in,” he said, stepping up onto the porch. Jinn still towered a head above him, posture straight as one of the posts holding up the porch roof. “I’m probably a bit ripe.”

“I’ve smelled worse,” Jinn said, with a faint smile. “Food, first.”

Inside, the cabin was neat as a pin, sparely but comfortably furnished, and larger than it looked from outside. A huge stone hearth took up one entire wall, extending back beyond an interior wall to what he suspected was a bedroom. Wood and kindling were stacked against it and a low fire burned there now. But the cooking was done across the room on a huge black monster of an iron stove fed with more wood. A pot simmered on the stovetop, and the rich aroma of stew made his stomach cramp with hunger.

He felt faint all of a sudden and reached for the back of a chair to steady himself. Jinn caught him and eased him into it as the room whirled and darkened. A hand on the back of his neck pushed his head down between his knees and that was the last he remembered: the feel of that big, callused hand on the nape of his neck, familiar and warm, from another life.

 

Obi-Wan woke stretched out on some soft surface in front of the hearth, covered with a blanket. Full dark had fallen, he saw through the window, but the inside of the cabin was lit softly by spots hidden in the corners shining up from the floor. Jinn sat beside him on a chair, unlit pipe in hand, watching him intently.

“Welcome back,” Jinn rumbled. “Had me a bit worried, you were out so long.”

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan muttered, and started to push himself up on one elbow. The room whirled again and he sank back onto whatever soft surface he’d been placed on, stomach roiling.

“Stay put, lad. Let’s get some food in you before you try anything as strenuous as sitting up.” Jinn got up and rattled somewhere behind him for a few moments, then came back with a heavy, steaming mug in one hand and piece of bread in the other. “How many days since you’ve eaten?”

“Properly? Four or five, I should think. However long it took me to get here from the port.”

“On foot?” Obi-Wan nodded. “Longer than that, then. No wonder you’re in the state you are.” Jinn slipped a hand beneath his head and held the rim of the mug to his lips. “Drink a bit of this, first. Have a care: it’s hot.”

Obi-Wan took a mouthful of the thick broth and closed his eyes in bliss. Nothing, he was quite sure, had ever tasted so good. He wanted more, immediately, but Jinn made him pace himself, and it was a good thing. A few more sips into the cup and his stomach cramped hard again, unused to anything in it. For a moment he thought what little was in it might come back up again, but the cramps passed, leaving him sweaty and shivering.

He finished the rest of the broth slowly, mopping out the mug with the piece of bread Jinn gave him, then sat up carefully, swinging his feet to the floor. The dizziness returned briefly and subsided.

“Wait there while I run a bath for you. Afterwards, you can have a bit more to eat if you think it will stay down.”

Obi-Wan nodded, suddenly too tired to speak. He leaned back and had a better look around as Jinn disappeared through a doorway at the back of the cabin. He heard water running. The soft surface he’d found himself on turned out to be a long, wood-framed couch, covered in deep, overstuffed cushions. The woodwork of the frame wasn’t fancy but handsome in its own way, sturdy and well-made. Nearer the fire sat a bentwood rocker that was more obviously a fine piece of craftsmanship and just as obviously well-loved, the wood burnished from the touch of a body that used it frequently. A small table, also handmade, sat between couch and chair; the thick black pelt of some animal occupied the floor. But for the wood stacked in its niche, the fieldstone hearth was unadorned, Obi-Wan thought, but on second glance he noted the andirons, grate, and tools were finely worked—no doubt in Jinn’s own forge.

He was imagining those big hands turning the iron in the furnace, beating it into a new shape against the anvil, when the man himself reappeared, one muscular hand outstretched to help him up. Obi-Wan levered himself onto his feet and Jinn gently took his elbow, guiding him toward the back of the cabin.

The fresher was larger than he expected, accommodating a tub nearly as large as the monstrous stove in the kitchen. Big furnishings for a big man, he thought. The tub was full of steaming water that looked almost as heavenly as the food had tasted. Jinn took his clothes as he peeled them off. He felt strangely awkward, stripping in Jinn’s presence, though he’d never been self-conscious about his body, and it wasn’t as though the man had never seen him naked before. But Jinn was studying him as he disrobed, as though reading the map of his skin. There was a great deal more to read on it than there had been ten years ago. And now there were ribs to count.

“There’s plenty of hot water if you want to wash off first and fill it again to soak when you’re clean,” Jinn told him. “You won’t drown if I leave you, will you?”

“Not now,” Obi-Wan promised. “But I’ve got nothing clean—“

“I’ve left you a robe, here on the hook, and a towel, and you can borrow a nightshirt until you’ve got some clothes of your own clean again. We’ll do that tomorrow. Take your time.” And Jinn left him alone.

Obi-Wan climbed into the steaming water and just let it warm him through for a bit before scrubbing off, head to foot. The water was grey by the time he was done, and he took Jinn’s advice, letting it out, rinsing the tub, and refilling it. His brain seemed to shut down then, and no wonder, he thought distantly, head wreathed in steam. He’d been on the run for weeks, since—no. No. Not now. Not tonight. It was still too fresh and yet still seemed strangely unreal in its horror. The images came anyway, unbidden and unwanted, images of fire and death and red sabers. Tears pricked his eyes. He squeezed them shut and dunked himself back under the water again, as though trying to literally drown the memories. It was minutes before he came up again, gasping, shaken. Was it himself or the memories he was trying to drown?

He soaked until the water was tepid. By the time he climbed out for good, he was logy and waterlogged. He toweled off and wrapped himself in the thick robe Jinn had left him, then ventured back out to the cabin’s main room. He was surprised at how warm the floor felt beneath his bare feet.

Jinn was sitting at the table near the stove, a three-quarters-eaten plate of thick stew in front him and a book propped open just above it. Obi-Wan took the chair across from him, where another place had been set, and Jinn closed the book, putting it aside.

“Better?” he asked, turning that blue gaze on Obi-Wan. He felt transparent beneath it, as though Jinn had seen his moment of weakness in the bath.

“Cleaner, at least,” Obi-Wan replied.

Jinn leaned back in his chair. “Summat more solid to eat?”

His stomach made its opinion known with a loud growl. One side of Jinn’s mouth curved upward. “I think that means ‘yes,’” Obi-Wan agreed.

Jinn looked him over for a moment, as though gauging his appetite, then nodded. The plate he set in front of Obi-Wan was half-full, and held another thick slab of bread. Jinn pushed a crock of butter toward him and then added a glass of water. “I think you’d best stick with this for now, though there’s generally beer or tea or whiskey.”

“Water’s fine, thanks,” Obi-Wan replied, and tucked in. It hadn’t looked like enough when Jinn had set the plate before him, but by the time he was done—and he made himself eat slowly—his pinched stomach was just full enough. Exhaustion settled over him as he put down his utensils.

Jinn seemed to sense that, too. “I’ve changed the sheets on the bed. I’ll sleep in the loft.”

“No, I don’t want to put you out of your own bed. I’ll take the loft.”

“No, lad. The state you’re in, you’ll do the same thing I did two years ago and break your neck instead of a leg. That’s why I added on the bedroom and built myself a bed. Too old for that foolishness.”

“Then we’ll both sleep there. It’s not as though we haven’t—that is—“

Again, the deep blue eyes searched his own, stopping the rest of his words in his mouth. Why was he so awkward with this man? He’d stayed five days the last time, and Jinn had taught him more about himself, about his own needs and desires, than he’d learned in all the years before or since from his master or anyone else. In the end, Jinn had returned the money Obi-Wan had paid to have himself put in chains and his own flesh laid open. He’d left a different man.

And he was a different man now. They both were, ten years later.

As if to deny it, Jinn reached across the table and covered one of his hands. “I meant what I said, all those years ago. That this should be a refuge for you. That’s not changed.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I know.”

“Then you know you owe me nothing.”

_I owe you more than you’ll ever know,_ Obi-Wan thought, but nodded his agreement. “But I won’t put you out of your own bed. And I, I’d rather not sleep alone, if you don’t mind.”

Jinn continued to study him. “No, I don’t mind,” he said at last. The man’s mouth quirked up again and he squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand and let it go. “But I won’t hurt you. Not now.”

“I didn’t come here for that,” Obi-Wan replied.

“Maybe not. But you’ll want it again, in time.”

“I doubt—“

Jinn touched two fingers to his lips, silencing him. “Later. We’ll talk later. You need sleep, now that you’ve eaten and washed up. That’s clear enough.”

And it was, even to Obi-Wan. He hadn’t the strength or desire to argue otherwise. Jinn led him through another doorway in the back of the cabin, to a room nearly filled by the bed that occupied it. The hearth continued along one wall where another low fire burned. The bed—oversized like the tub and neatly made up with a thick patchwork quilt in greens— faced it, parallel to the back wall and its window. Most remarkable was the wall of shelves that framed the headboard, lined with old, frayed, and well-loved books and other media. Obi-Wan had never seen so many bound volumes outside the special collections in the Temple’s library—something he would never see again. The realization was like a knife in his gut.

The only other furnishings were a chest at the foot of the bed and a table beside it. A small braided rug in bright colors covered the floor next to the bed. Jinn opened the chest and tossed a long homespun nightshirt on the bed.

“You’ll need this. The nights are cool up here, this time of year. And I keep the window open.”

The shirt hung nearly to his ankles and was laughably large on him, but it was soft with wear and smelled of sun and wind.

Jinn pulled the covers back and Obi-Wan crawled in gratefully. “I’ll leave a glass of water by the bed. If you want anything before I come in, give a shout. Sleep well, lad.”

“Thank you, Qui-Gon,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and tumbling downward once again into the haven of sleep.

 

In the grey light of early morning, Obi-Wan woke to the soft patter of rain and the scent of wet forest through the open window. It was only open a crack, but it was enough to let in a brisk waft of fresh air, and to make him glad he was tucked under warm covers with someone at his back.

Not someone. Qui-Gon Jinn, who was wearing nothing but his own skin. Obi-Wan knew this because the man’s large, lean body was spooned against his own at back and arse and knees, a large, solid morning erection tucked between them against Obi-Wan’s buttocks where his shirt had rucked up in the night. Obi-Wan had his own erection this morning, but not much inclination to do anything about it. He found himself still in that dreamy state between sleeping and waking and let himself enjoy the fresh air, and the sensations of Jinn’s breath on his neck, the man’s arm snugged around his waist, and the heat at his back. It was far more pleasant to just drift in peace than open his eyes. Waking would involve thinking and remembering, neither of which he wanted to do.

As though his own state had broken Jinn’s slumber, the man nuzzled against him, huffing a warm breath against his hair and tightening his grip around Obi-Wan’s waist. “Morning, lad,” Jinn rumbled in his ear. “Sleep well?”

Obi-Wan rolled over, still in that not-yet-awake place he enjoyed but seldom had opportunity to indulge. “Yes,” he murmured and yawned. “Thank you.” Jinn was disconcertingly bright-eyed for having just woken. “For the first time in a long while.”

“Ah, you don’t remember then,” Jinn said in a quiet voice, and brushed a stray fall of hair from Obi-Wan’s eyes. “Just as well, from the sound of it.”

“Remember what?”

“When I came in last night, you were dreaming. And not happily.”

He’d forgotten how easily this man read him, how accessible the inside of his head was. Jinn had honed his own powerful gifts from the Force in whatever way he could during his life and read Obi-Wan like one of his books. What could he say to that observation?

“It’s all right, lad. You quietened down once I got hold of you. But I suspect it’s not the first one you’ve had, is it?” Jinn said with a concerned frown.

Obi-Wan swallowed heavily and squeezed his eyes shut again, images from other dreams and from the reality that sparked them rising up unbidden, ambushing him. “No,” he said hoarsely.

Jinn pressed his lips to Obi-Wan’s forehead and pulled him close. The kindness snapped something in him. Obi-Wan’s arms went around the bigger man almost convulsively. He seemed unable to stop himself. Too long on the run, suppressing grief and terror and rage in the interests of survival, too long without releasing the more poisonous emotions to the Force for fear of being tracked. He shuddered in Jinn’s arms and tried to push himself away, to spare Jinn the wash of feelings he knew he was leaking, but the big man held on to him, not ungently but firmly. One hand closed on the nape of his neck, fingers pushing up into his hair and flexing lightly there, soothing him as they had long ago when he hung in chains at Jinn’s mercy. Obi-Wan sank against him, surrendering.

Jinn rolled him over on his back, the bigger man’s weight pinning him down, his lips tracking a faint trail from Obi-Wan’s temple to his neck, breath warm on his skin. When his lips found Obi-Wan’s, he opened them hungrily, desperate for something to keep memory at bay. Jinn pushed in and Obi-Wan let him, whatever protest he might have made silenced by his need. He wanted this and didn’t, the way he’d both wanted and hadn’t wanted the lashing Jinn had once given him.

He shuddered again as Jinn leaned back and slid the nightshirt up over his hips and torso, up over and off his arms and head in a slow sweep of callused palms. His fists clenched in Jinn’s hair as the man leaned down again to lick at first one nipple then the other, biting down on the rucked brown flesh and sending electric shocks straight through him. Obi-Wan squirmed and whimpered beneath Jinn, flooded with physical sensations that drove all thought from his head. He heard himself cry out, the cry turning to a sob as Jinn’s mouth closed around his stiff cock. “No! Oh gods! Please!” His hips bucked as Jinn began to work him. One hand entirely enveloped his scrotum and squeezed and rolled his balls until Obi-Wan was almost frantic with a need he hadn’t suspected. Then Jinn swallowed him down.

The sob turned to a shriek as Jinn’s expert attentions pushed him over the edge into an orgasm that shook him from head to toe, a release he’d needed for a long time. He collapsed back onto the mattress, panting and trembling, one arm thrown over his eyes to hide the tears slipping from them. A moment later, he felt Jinn lie down beside him again and flinched away like a nervous animal when the man’s fingers stroked across his belly. Jinn’s big hand lay flat there for a moment until the tension ran completely out of Obi-Wan’s body, then stroked gently along his flank. The touch was soothing, affectionate.

“You’ve not grown any quieter, I see,” Jinn observed.

Obi-Wan could hear the amusement in Jinn’s voice and let his arm drop, barking out an answering wry laugh. He ground the heels of his hands against his eyes, wiping the tears away. “Not with you, at least,” he acknowledged. “Though it’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone else.”

“Part of the reason  you’re wound up like a spring, I’d say. That should take a bit of the edge off for now, lad.”

“And what about you?” Obi-Wan rolled over on his side and found himself tangling his legs with Jinn’s. The move surprised both of them. Jinn cupped his cheek in one hand, thumb lightly brushing across the skin, an unexpected tenderness in his face.

“It’s been a long time for me, too,” he admitted, “but you don’t—”

“I want to.” Obi-Wan reached for him and Jinn took his hand and closed it around his cock. With that hot, soft velvet-over-steel in his hand, Obi-Wan remembered how large Jinn’s penis was— too big for a comfortable mouthful. He squeezed hard and Jinn groaned quietly, eyes closing, head thrown back, tendons in his neck standing out beneath papery skin. It struck Obi-Wan suddenly, in the dim daylight, how much Jinn had aged in the intervening years. Not that it mattered.

Jinn set the rhythm for him and Obi-Wan followed it, swiping his thumb along the slit and beneath the crown at each upstroke, making Jinn shudder. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Jinn’s, felt them open, and slipped his tongue in, tasting himself there. Jinn bucked into his hand, one of his own hard on Obi-Wan’s hip, the other cupped beneath his head as they kissed. At last, Jinn broke away.

“A little—yes!” Jinn hissed as Obi-Wan sped the rhythm and dragged his nails up Jinn’s cock. It jumped in his hand and Jinn shuddered as he came, groaning. “Ah, lad!” Obi-Wan thought there would probably be bruises on his hip, later. That didn’t matter either.

Jinn heaved a sigh and sank back into his own pillow, pulling Obi-Wan close again, their legs still tangled. Obi-Wan closed his eyes, feeling drained and sad. Jinn was right, he was calmer now, but the sex had been nothing but a mechanical release. He was too bruised to put any affection into it, though he thought it was there, somewhere. Jinn’s lips brushed his forehead.

“Go back to sleep, Ben,” the man murmured, using the name Obi-Wan had given him years ago. He’d never told Jinn his real name and Jinn hadn’t asked. “ It’s time I got up to see to the beasts.”

 

Much later, he heard the door slam and Jinn stamping on the threshold, then the sound of water running and metal clanging. He’d slept again, after Jinn got up, and felt thick-headed for it rather than refreshed. The robe Jinn had given him lay at the foot of the bed and Obi-Wan put it on and padded out into the main room. Jinn was at the stove and had set two places at the table.

This was the first good look at Jinn in daylight that he’d had. The leggings he remembered from years ago had been replaced by trousers in some heavy woven cloth that buttoned up the front. In place of the smock and leather apron from Obi-Wan’s memory, Jinn wore a deep green woollen shirt that pulled on over his head, tucked in, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing powerful forearms. The long, loose braid he’d wound his hair into fell far down his back and was heavily shot with grey and silver among the bronze. The beard he remembered was still there, neat around his mouth and closely trimmed. Deep lines spread from the corners of his eyes like a river delta. In another Obi-Wan would have called them worry lines, but even now Jinn was humming quietly to himself, radiating content with the day. Sensing Obi-Wan observing him, the man acknowledged him with a nod and went back to his cooking.

Obi-Wan sat where he had last night and sank his head in his hands. Today he would have to start thinking about what to do next, and the truth was, he had no idea. He’d been on the run for weeks now, his only purpose since he’d left Coruscant to get here. Now that he’d arrived, there were more decisions to be made. He wasn’t sure he had the wherewithal to make them.

Jinn set a steaming mug down in front of him and went back to the stove. It turned out to be tea, black as sin and strong enough to melt a spoon. Obi-Wan diluted it a bit with the milk on the table and stirred sugar into it. The first mouthful was pleasantly hot and chased some of the fog from his head. When he was halfway through it, Jinn set two full plates down on the table and joined him.

“Eat up, lad,” Jinn told him, tucking into his own meal. “You’ll feel better for it.”

The man was right, Obi-Wan knew, but he had no appetite. Still, he forced himself to eat, not wanting to waste what was put before him—a precept inculcated in him early in his Jedi training. The food was good—he knew that somewhere in his mind—but it could have been sand he was eating for all the taste it had for him. Somewhere between last night and this morning, he’d lost whatever had kept him going since he’d left Coruscant.

When they were finished, Obi-Wan started to collect their plates. “I’ll wash u—“

“So you won’t have to think?” Jinn said with a deadly accuracy but not unkindly. “You’ll have to, sooner or later, Ben. It’s best done sooner.”

Obi-Wan sank back down in his chair, plates still in hand. Jinn took them from him gently and set them to one side.

“We’ve all heard what happened,” Jinn said in the kind of voice Obi-Wan imagined he used with nervous animals: quiet, calm, unthreatening. “Even out here. The Jedi declared enemies of the state. Massacred in their temple. The temple burned. The rest cut down by clone troops wherever they were. The manhunts and bounties. It goes without saying there’s a price on your head. I need to know if you’ve been followed. If you ever spoke about this place to anyone.”

“No,” Obi-Wan replied, not meeting Jinn’s gaze. “No. I kept my promise. No one knows I was ever here.” He was looking down at the table but not seeing it, one hand sweeping back and forth across its surface, fixated on the smooth grain.

“Is it possible you were followed?” Jinn repeated, and closed a hand over Obi-Wan’s, trapping it.

“Anything is possible,” Obi-Wan said with an air of fatalism he’d never felt before. “But I took pains to make sure I wasn’t. I was a long time getting here, doubling back, covering my trail, laying false ones.”

“Does anyone know where you’ve gone? Anyone?”

“I told you—no.”

Jinn reached across the table and lifted his chin, but said nothing. The look was enough. He was endangering this man by his presence; Jinn had a right to know who might betray them.

“Yoda,” Obi-Wan said. “Just Master Yoda. The—I suppose he was the head of the order, the most senior councillor. We were the last two left alive, as far as I know. He’s gone to—”

Jinn stopped him. “I don’t need to know where he’s gone. I need to know if they’ll find him.”

Obi-Wan smiled but it was bitter. “Not likely.”

“I’ll take your word for it, then,” Jinn responded, leaning back. “Were you seen coming through town?”

“Yes. But I didn’t stop. Or speak to anyone.”

“Good. That buys us a bit of time. If anyone asks, you’ve stopped for a few days to odd-job for me while you’re looking for a homestead site. Luckily I’ve a few projects I could use another hand on. I’ll make up a pallet in the barn so it looks like you’re sleeping there.”

“And then? When the jobs are done?”

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. It’s enough for the moment to get you properly fed and back on your feet, and get you some clean clothes. I’ve got yours soaking now. You wash up while I go wring them out and put them on the rack to dry.” Jinn got up with the plates in his hand and put them beside the sink. “In the meanwhile I’ve got some leggings that have shrunk up, and a shirt that’ll hang on you, but at least it’ll keep you warm. Since the floors are heated, I think you’ll be all right barefoot. I usually am, but take a pair of socks if you need to. I’m afraid my other small clothes won’t be of much use to you, despite the size of that package of yours.” And he grinned, blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

Obi-Wan found himself grinning back, Jinn’s good humor too infectious to resist.

“Better,” he nodded, approving. “It looks like it’s going to rain all day, so you might as well stay inside, until we get you some decent clothing. I’ll be out and about in the workshop out back. Make yourself at home, and shout if you need anything.”

 

As Obi-Wan washed up their breakfast dishes, Jinn spread the clothes he’d washed out on a rack to dry before the fire, which he carefully stoked up before going out again. Obi-Wan acquainted himself with the kitchen’s contents as he dried and put things away. Jinn didn’t have much in the way of dishware, enough for two or sometimes three, all of it stored on shelves near the sink. Other shelves held jugs and jars of staples and a small coldbox held milk, butter and fresh produce. A few well-cared for cast-iron pots and pans hung on a hand-forged rack above the stove. Eating and cooking utensils sat upright in two crocks on a hardwood counter scored with knife cuts. Three knives and a cleaver honed to glittering sharpness rested in a slot between the wall and cutting surface.

Obi-Wan explored the rest of the cabin after Jinn headed out to his workshop, but it didn’t take long. He’d seen most of it the night before. There was only the main room that ran the width of the cabin and held the kitchen and living room, and behind it, the fresher, and the bedroom. The loft Jinn had referred to was tucked over the kitchen area where the heat from the big stove would make it a warm place to sleep. A steep set of stairs, almost ladder-like, led up to the loft near the back wall. The space was empty now, aside from another chest. Obi-Wan wondered how Jinn had wrestled it up there. Perhaps his Force skills were good enough to levitate it. A trap door in the kitchen with a slightly gentler set of stairs led to a root cellar well stocked with provisions. All of it was surprisingly clean and neat. Jinn lived as simply and neatly, or neater, than the Jedi Obi-Wan knew.

Had known.

And now there were only two of them left, perhaps a handful, out of what had been hundreds of thousands scattered across the galaxy, slandered, falsely accused, hunted and murdered. And a few people like Jinn, untrained but powerful. The realization came back to him again in a flash, stealing his breath, choking him. How could this happen? Why hadn’t anyone seen this coming?

Jinn had seen it coming. Obi-Wan remembered his words clearly, all these years later. He’d mulled them over often enough.  _I've seen a monster with red markings and a red sword, like your lightsabers,_ he’d said. _There's deceit, too. A man in a cowl—he'll make fools of the wise. I can't see an end to the folly._ Yes, they’d been fools, all of them. Even the Council, fooled by Palpatine. Worse yet, fooled by—

But he shied away from that memory. It was too painful yet. Why hadn’t he known? His own visions had been clear enough and he’d learned—been taught—to distrust them.

And he’d wanted to believe otherwise. That people he had known and loved had betrayed him and everything he stood for was still unbearable. The memories flooded him: the clues he’d been given and ignored, the awful moment when his own troops had turned on him, scenes from the temple he wanted to forget. He tried to push them away but couldn’t. They’d chased him down the lightyears from Coruscant; he’d spent as much time fleeing his own memory as he had working his way toward this place. As Jinn guessed, it found him most often at night, when he had no defenses. He could cloak himself from his pursuers, but his own mind had no trouble finding him.

As it found him now, finally, when he was too worn to ward it off, even wide awake.

He sank onto his knees blindly, overwhelmed by memory, and that was where Jinn found him a short while later: in the middle of the floor, folded in on himself with his hands over his face, cheeks and beard wet with tears. The first he was aware of it was the touch of a hand on his shoulder squeezing gently, then moving to the back of his neck and up into his hair. “It’s all right, lad, it’s all right,” a deep voice murmured. “Let it go.”

He didn’t know where he was and sat up on his heels abruptly. Heart thumping, he looked around wildly, recognizing nothing, flinching from the touch on his hair.

A large hand gently stroked down his back and Obi-Wan felt an overwhelming sense of peace flow through him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, the present resolving itself around him until the room became familiar once more. Jinn’s hand stroked over his back, his voice murmuring, “Easy, lad. You’re safe here. It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Obi-Wan shuddered and wiped his face. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and stumbled to his feet, still in the robe Jinn had given him. The man helped him up and kept a hand on his arm as he led Obi-Wan to the couch again. They sat together silently, Jinn smelling of fresh wood and dusted with  wood shavings from the knees down. “I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said again. “I, I don’t know what—”

“You’ve not had time to grieve, is what, I suspect,” Jinn said. He took his pipe from a pouch on his belt and began to fill it, tamping it with one huge finger. “That’s what it felt like, at least: grief.”

“You felt—” Obi-Wan began, panic making his heart thump again. If Jinn could sense his feelings, that meant anyone could.

Jinn chuckled. “There’s no one here but me to know, lad. I’m the only Force-sensitive here, besides you. Believe me, I’d know.”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Obi-Wan said grimly. “And yet the Sith lord hid from us in plain sight.”

Jinn held a brand from the fire to his pipe and drew on it. Once it was going, he settled back into the cushions and stretched out, crossing his legs at the ankle, exhaling a cloud of fragrant smoke. Obi-Wan remained on the edge, elbows resting on his knees. “I wonder how much you lot bothered to look?” Jinn said.

Obi-Wan felt a flare of anger that quickly faded. Jinn was right. None of them had really believed the Sith had returned until it was far too late. Not even after Obi-Wan had killed that monster—the one Jinn had described—on Naboo. “Not closely enough, obviously,” Obi-Wan admitted.

“You killed that one I saw, with the red markings.” It was a statement, not a question.

Obi-Wan nodded, staring down at his hands dangling between his knees. “The apprentice. But it was a near thing. And not until it killed my partner. The moment I saw it, I knew what it was, thanks to you, but I couldn’t sense it in the Force.”

Jinn nodded thoughtfully. “No, you wouldn’t be able to. Not unless they wanted it. The Sith are masters of concealment, like the Fallanassi.”

Obi-Wan turned around and stared at Jinn, who sat calmly next to him, teeth gripping his pipe while he clipped the pouch to his belt again. “How do you know?”

Jinn looked up at him, eyes glittering with more mischief. “You think only the Jedi know anything about the Force? You can’t be that naive, lad.”

“You had a teacher.” It was Obi-Wan’s turn to make statements.

“Aye. Several, and good ones, but neither Jedi nor Sith. And not until I was older—older than you.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

Jinn snorted, amused. “If only the wee ones could learn to use the Force, we would never have had any Jedi to begin with, would we?”

“No, but—”

“I don’t deny it’s easier when you’ve got no pre-conceived notions to get in your way, but that in itself is a good lesson: learning to let go.” Jinn leaned forward and tapped Obi-Wan’s knee as he’d tamped his pipe. “Not everything your order has taught you is the whole truth, Master Kenobi. Or should I say, General Kenobi?”

Obi-Wan looked at him in astonishment and Jinn winked. And now he was afraid again. If Jinn knew who he was, where else had he been recognized? For the first time in years he’d cut his hair down to nubs and gone bare-faced in his first weeks as a fugitive. He’d kept his shields high and only used the Force sparingly to cloak himself or misdirect others’ attention. And he’d stripped himself of everything that might mark him as a Jedi: clothing, mannerisms, possessions, contacts—everything but Anakin’s lightsaber and his own. Those two things he could not bear to part with, though he carried them wrapped in leather in his pack and not at his side. Yet Jinn had known who he was.

“Don’t fret yourself, lad. I knew it was you the first I saw you on the holonet at the start of the war. You’ve made quite a name for yourself, you and that boy you lot were calling the Chosen One, which makes it all the more astonishing to me that people would believe you or the rest of the Jedi would betray the Republic. That’s quite a propaganda machine our new emperor has.”

“Yes, it is,” Obi-Wan agreed, voice thick with sarcasm. “I’m sure fear and intimidation help a great deal, as well.” Obi-Wan sank his head into hands. “I can hardly believe what’s happened  myself.”

Jinn’s hand came down on his shoulder again and squeezed. “No, I can only imagine what you’ve been through,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. Give yourself time to grieve. If you need to talk, I’ll be here to listen. You’re safe here, Ben, and you can stay as long as you like.”

“I don’t think I should stay long,” Obi-Wan said, already regretting that fact. “I think my being here might endanger you.”

“That’s my lookout, innit?” Jinn got to his feet. “Now, if you’re all right, I’ve got a bit of work to finish up. Go get yourself dressed, lad. We’ll eat summat a bit later. Off you go.”

 

The leggings were still too long but snug enough to stay up and the shirt was more a tunic than anything like a shirt. He retrieved his belt from the fresher and cinched it tighter with that. He made up the bed and then found himself at a complete loss.

Wherever he’d stopped before, his time had been filled with finding food and shelter and transport on to the next stage of his journey, as well as making sure he wasn’t recognized or followed. When he could, he’d slept, hoarding his resources. Even though he’d finally come to rest, his brain was still geared to flight, no matter how exhausted his body was. He felt twitchy and anxious, so far from the calm centeredness he usually experienced that he hardly knew himself.

Stripped of home, friends, and purpose he might be, but he was not without resources. It had been too long since he’d had the luxury of time or safety to meditate. It was time he did so again. Past time.

He sat down on the bed, legs folded and back straight, hands loose on his knees. He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, then another, and another. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale . . . and he felt himself downshifting, the tension leaving his body, his heartbeat slowing . . .

* * *

Gentle fingers brushed across his forehead, cupped his cheek. “—up, lad. I let you sleep through lunch but you need a bit of supper in you. Then you can go back to sleep.”

Obi-Wan blinked and was surprised to find himself lying on his side on the bed, knees drawn up and his hands tucked between them. Jinn had spread a quilt over him and was sitting on the side of the bed now, watching him and smiling faintly with amusement. “You’ve had a good nap,” he rumbled. “Feel better?”

Obi-Wan pushed himself upright, rubbing his eyes. He did feel better for the nap, though he didn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing he remembered was—little gods! He hadn’t fallen asleep meditating since he was a youngling. He must have just toppled over where he sat.

“Not surprising you did, considering,” Jinn answered his thoughts.

“You’re very good at that,” Obi-Wan yawned. “Reading minds.”

Jinn snorted. “You’re broadcasting clear as day. Not a shield to speak of.”

Obi-Wan checked. The man was right. He’d left himself wide open. That kind of sheer carelessness could get him killed. His heart thumped hard in panic at his own stupidity.

Jinn’s massive hand closed on his shoulder and shook him a little. He looked up, startled back into the moment. “It’s all right, lad. I’ve said you’re safe here, and you are. At the moment, what you need more than anything is food and sleep,” Jinn reiterated, “and a chance to find your balance again. I’ll watch out for you while you do. Now come and eat.”

Jinn rose and Obi-Wan scrambled off the bed to follow him, feeling like a foolish apprentice in Jinn’s wake. The man was right. He’d lost his equilibrium, both emotional and physical; he’d lost his whole sense of self, and needed to find that again before he could make any rational decisions. All he could do was trust Jinn at this point, and hope it was enough.

 

Dinner was the last of the stew, with bread and cheese and—little gods! How had he not smelled that baking?—a pie. Obi-Wan ate like the starving man he was, and Jinn had to slow him down more than once; it wasn’t sand he was eating this time. Jinn was amused, watching him.

“You’d think I was a master chef,” he said, mopping his own plate with a bit of bread.

“You are, compared to some of what I’ve eaten lately, including my own cooking. Jedi learn to eat just about anything that’s put in front of them that isn’t poisonous, but it’s always a pleasure to eat something this good.” Obi-Wan popped the last bit of gravy-soaked bread in his mouth and closed his eyes, savoring it. His plate looked as though it had never had anything on it.

Jinn laughed. “No need to lick your plate,” he said. “There’s more where that came from. We don’t want for food on this little world, even if a harvest goes ill. And it’s a pleasure cooking for someone other than myself, for a change. Especially someone who enjoys their victuals.”

There was a wistful note in Jinn’s voice that Obi-Wan thought might be loneliness, lightly disguised. “You don’t invite friends for dinner?” he said.

There was definitely bitterness in Jinn’s laugh, though it was self-deprecating as well. “If I had them I would. I’m an outsider here, always have been, anywhere.” He cut Obi-Wan a slice of pie and put it on his plate, then did the same for himself.

“Why is that?” Obi-Wan said, puzzled. “If you don’t mind me asking.” He dug into the pie, still warm from the oven and filled with tart fruit. Just the smell made his mouth water.

Jinn seemed to consider for a moment, chewing his pie. “Certain things . . . follow a man,” he said at last. “I’ve had what you might call an interesting life.”

“‘Blacksmith, carpenter, part-time whore’?” Obi-Wan quoted Jinn’s own words to him, from years ago.

“Not the latter, not anymore.” He grinned for a moment. “I’ve given up beating foolish young men. But there were other occupations, elsewhere, before I settled here. Word gets around. People come to me for ironwork and carpentry, and they’re cordial, but not . . . friendly. I’ve only been here fifteen years, you see.” The smile this time was ironic. “You’ll be tarred with the same brush if you stay here.”

“Just as well. Less danger to everyone else, if I’m discovered. About that—”

“I’d advise you to wait a bit before you make any decisions, lad. Rest up, give yourself some time to think.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Good advice. I don’t think I’ve said how grateful I am for your help and hospitality, though. I’m not sure what I would have done without it.”

“I hear you Jedi are a resourceful lot. I’m sure you’d have coped.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, mouth full of pie, and said when he’d fully enjoyed and swallowed it, “I’m not so certain, looking back. If it weren’t for B—if it weren’t for friends, neither Master Yoda nor I would have gotten off-planet.”

“But you did, and you made your way here, without being found out. Give yourself time to sort through what’s happened before you make snap judgements about yourself—or anything else.”

Good advice again. At the moment, he didn’t feel competent enough to do anything. He felt completely at sea, cut off from everything he’d known. If he couldn’t be a Jedi, who was he then? A wave of sadness washed over him, turning the meal in his stomach sour. He put his fork down and hid his face in his hands, tears pricking his eyes again, his emotions up and down like a wild simulator ride. Little gods, he was falling apart. Already had, and couldn’t find the pieces.

Jinn’s hand closed gently on his forearm, giving it a squeeze. “Let it out, Ben. Don’t hold it all in where it can eat you alive. The sooner lanced, the sooner healed. Remember: I’ve seen you  naked and thrashing and snot-faced, snorting your own tears when you weren’t howling and begging.”

Obi-Wan laughed at that, the sound brittle and edgy. “That’s right. I’ve fallen apart in front of you before,” he choked, dropping his hands. He let the tears run freely down his face. “More than once. It seems easy to do with you.”

“So tell me, then.”

“It’s a long story,” Obi-Wan warned him, wiping his eyes again and looking round for something to blow his nose with. Jinn handed him a clean handkerchief. He felt like a crechling as he took it.

Jinn cleared their plates while Obi-Wan cleaned himself up, then motioned him over to the fire while he brought over glasses and a bottle half-full of amber-colored liquid and poured three fingers in the bottom of each glass. “Go easy with this; it’s got a kick like an eopie,” Jinn warned and turned to stoke up the fire. When it was crackling briskly, Obi-Wan sat on the couch, Jinn in the rocker with his pipe, the glasses and bottle on the table between them. “Now, then,” Jinn said, striking a match and holding it to the bowl of his pipe, “let’s hear the tale. From your point of view.”

Obi-Wan sipped at his glass. The liquor had a pleasant, astringent taste and warmed him all the way down. “I suppose it starts with Anakin,” he began. He’d found the boy on Tatooine, on that disastrous mission to Naboo not long after he’d left Jinn’s world. “Another untrained Force sensitive, like you, but younger, about ten. And far, far stronger than any of us. An adept, really.” Dooku had believed Anakin was the Chosen One and petitioned the Council to be Anakin’s master. But the boy had already formed a bond with Obi-Wan, and the Council agreed it shouldn’t be broken. Dooku had been furious, and accused Obi-Wan of standing in Anakin’s way, depriving him of the better master. Ultimately, Dooku had left the Order over it—the culmination of a long string of “differences of opinion.” Anakin’s arrival had only strained Dooku’s bonds with the Jedi to the breaking point.

“Your master sounds like a hard man,” Jinn observed, exhaling a cloud of smoke and taking a sip from his glass.

“He was,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “Convinced of his own wisdom. Arrogant. Probably not the best master for me, either.”

“Why’s that?”

Obi-Wan shrugged and took a sip of his own liquor. “I disappointed him. Too weak, too cautious, too orthodox.”

Jinn shook his head. “I doubt the Republic would have made such a mediocre Jedi a general.”

“He was right, in part. I was too cautious, too orthodox, but not in the ways he thought. But that’s neither here nor there.”

“The partner who was killed on Naboo—who was that?”

“Master Tahl. She was the senior negotiator—a quite brilliant historian and a talented fighter. A good friend, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Jinn murmured.

Obi-Wan nodded sadly, accepting the sentiment but lost in the memory. She’d died in his arms, discorporating without giving him a chance to say goodbye. Like so many others.

“And Anakin?” Jinn prompted gently.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan sighed, and took another sip. He’d been drinking slowly but steadily. Jinn refilled his glass.  “It was a joy to train him, even in the throes of the war. He was bright, inquisitive, sunny—and frighteningly talented. It was a job to keep up with him. He would figure out how to do things before I’d shown him how to control his talents, or how to use them wisely. He made me grey before my time,” Obi-Wan half-laughed. “And he made me a stiff-necked disciplinarian. But my real failure was not keeping him away from Palpatine, once they’d met on Naboo. Palpatine must have known immediately what Anakin’s potential was, as much as we did. But none of us realized who Palpatine really was. We were all fools. All fools together.”

Obi-Wan drained his glass. Jinn poured more. He’d had enough and should say so, but it had warmed and loosened his muscles more than they’d been in, well, far too long. Apparently it also loosened his tongue.

Anakin’s story came out of him in fits and starts, between sips from his glass. After a while, it became easier to tell Jinn about Anakin’s defiance and anger, his fear of loss, his attachment to Padme. “He was knighted young, too young, I think, regardless of his abilities. He wasn’t ready for it emotionally. It made him arrogant.”

“So it often happens in wars,” Jinn agreed and filled his pipe and Obi-Wan’s glass again. “And others suffer for it.”

Obi-Wan described their pursuit of Asajj Ventress and General Grievous, Palpatine’s false kidnapping—

“And there it all began to go to hell,” he said, sweeping his arm out rather dramatically. He was drunk and he knew it and didn’t care. He couldn’t have told this part of the story sober even with all the Sith tortures visited on him at once.

“We’d expected Grievous to be behind the kidnapping. But it was another, a Sith. My master.”

“Dooku?” Jinn asked, seeming less surprised than he should have.

Obi-Wan nodded, then stopped abruptly. The movement made him dizzy. And a little sick. “It took both of us to subdue him. He’d grown incredibly powerful. Anakin amputated his hands, one by one, after he’d buried me under a balcony.

“Who killed him? You or that lad?” Jinn asked gently.

“I did,” Obi-Wan admitted.

“Why?”

Obi-Wan gawped and stuttered and shouted incredulously, “What do you mean, ‘why?’”

“That’s not the Jedi way, is it? To kill their prisoners? You said the boy had already taken off his hands.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes tightly. Jinn took the glass from him and set it on the table, but Obi-Wan was barely aware of it. He was back in that room on the _Invisible Hand_ , Dooku kneeling at his feet, begging for mercy, he and Anakin holding Obi-Wan’s old master at bay while Palpatine hissed “kill him!” in the background. Once again he saw the light in Anakin’s eyes, the fury barely contained.

“I did it so Anakin wouldn’t,” he whispered.

“Why?” Jinn repeated.

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan admitted. “A rough justice, I suppose.”

“And your own little bit of revenge? For the betrayal?”

“No,” Obi-Wan said softly. “No. It would have been that for Anakin. I never—seeing Dooku there was a shock, but not a surprise. I remember thinking how inevitable it seemed to find him there, gone over to the Dark. It just made me . . . sad. Not angry. Anakin would have killed him in anger. I wanted to spare the boy that. Protect him. Perhaps I did too much of that when he was my padawan. That’s not the way to teach someone the consequences of their lack of control.”

Jinn sighed.  “There’s a time for mercy, and time for justice. And a time when the only mercy is a harsh justice. Your former master was a dangerous traitor and a murderer.”

Jinn was right, but it still grated. “I could live with that,” he said quietly, “but for what came after. When Anakin turned.”

Jinn topped up his glass again, and put it in his hand. The bottle was nearly empty. “Tell me,” he said.

And Obi-Wan did, but Jinn had to pry it from him. Though the alcohol made the memories all too accessible, the words seemed snagged in his throat.

So Jinn asked him about Order 66, prompting. Obi-Wan described how his own troops, men he’d considered brothers-in-arms, clones or not, had turned on him, how he’d managed to escape. He described sensing so many of his friends and colleagues going into the Force. He’d thought that shock alone would stop his heart, each death like a physical blow. It had been almost overwhelming. Even so, it hadn’t prepared him for what he’d found at the Temple.

Geonosis had been bad: so many Jedi dead, so many young padawans struck down. But at least they had died defending themselves, defending each other, sabers in hand. And at least they’d been old enough to have masters. In the Temple it had been, simply, infanticide. The massacre of innocents. The tears came with that memory and he couldn’t stop them. He wept for the younglings cut down by someone they trusted, for their protectors who knew they’d failed, for the extermination of so many thousands of lives. And he wept to know someone he had once loved had done it.

When the tears slowed, he found himself on his knees again, in Jinn’s arms, the big smith rocking him gently, fingers threaded through his hair. His head was pounding and the room spun around him. He didn’t think he could go on, he was so tired. But Jinn wouldn’t let him stop.

“And Anakin?” Jinn said as Obi-Wan pushed himself out of the man’s arms and back on his own heels.

“I should have killed him,” Obi-Wan snarled. “I should have, instead of leaving him there, maimed and burning for Palpatine to turn into an even greater monster.”

“What happened?”

Again, the tale came out in broken sentences: confronting Padme, stowing away on her ship, finding Anakin on Mustafar and being unable to stop him from harming the woman he supposedly loved. And the fight that followed, much of which seemed a vast nightmare to him now, a horror of heat and choking gases and fire, like a battle on the plains of hell itself.

“And you left him there,” Jinn prompted. “Why? Why not kill him? Why not put him out of his misery? Why leave him half a man? He hated you—”

“All right! I wanted him to suffer!” Obi-Wan shouted. “I wanted _him_ . . . to . . . suffer,” he ground out, teeth and fists clenched.

There it was.

Little gods but he was tired.

Jinn said nothing, but got up and fetched him back a glass of water, and then another. “Drink it all down, or you’ll have a hell of a hangover in the morning.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Obi-Wan asked when he’d finished the second glass. They’d retreated once more to couch and rocking chair. Jinn had started up his pipe again and was still sipping at his glass, with another of water on the table beside him. Obi-Wan felt certain he’d drunk most of the liquor that was missing from the bottle.

“I can’t give you absolution, lad,” Jinn said quietly. “You know as well as I you’ll have to live with what you’ve done and what you haven’t, and the why of it.”

And that was the truth. There was no escaping it.

He felt beaten now. Not just physically exhausted, but defeated. It had all gone irreversibly wrong and he had helped it along that path. At the crucial moment, he’d been no better a Jedi—no better a man—than Anakin, giving in to his own anger. He wasn’t sure much would have changed if he hadn’t killed Dooku, but he was certain he should never have left Anakin alive. As Jinn said, he’d have to live with those consequences. And many others would die from them.

“What about the wee ones? Skywalker’s and the young senator’s?” Jinn asked.

“Safe,” was all Obi-Wan would say; the girl had gone with Bail Organa, the boy, for the moment, with Yoda. Jinn nodded. That was enough.

They sat quietly for a time, while Jinn finished his whiskey and his pipe. The sound of the rocker on the boards was soothing, like breathing. Obi-Wan stretched his feet out toward the fire and tipped his head back, letting the rhythm fill him. He’d dozed off lightly when Jinn’s voice came to him again.

“I’ll wash up if you want to have a bath. You should go to bed, lad.”

“Yes,” he said, and sat up, blinking in the firelight. After a moment, he got up and headed past Jinn to the fresher, weaving a little. On the way, he put a hand on Jinn’s shoulder and squeezed. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, lad. Sleep well.”

 

And he did, that night, and dreamlessly, for a change. The bath had made him even more drowsy and he’d crawled into bed afterwards wearing Jinn’s nightshirt and fallen instantly asleep. He thought he remembered Jinn coming in and curling around him, but when he woke in the morning, the bed was empty.

The rain had stopped and sunlight streamed in through the window. It was like having daggers plunged into his head through his eye sockets. Obi-Wan pulled the pillow over his head and groaned. He should have had more water last night. His mouth tasted like the inside of a Hutt’s—well, there was an image he didn’t quite want to pursue—and his head was pounding. But there were cures for that, if you were a Jedi. Obi-Wan snorted, disgusted with himself. Gingerly, he sat up in bed and sank into a light meditation to clear the poisons from his system. He’d drunk enough alcohol, apparently, that he could almost smell it evaporating from his pores. Damned fool. But it had done its job and loosened his tongue. Jinn had been right. He felt purged, if not entirely unburdened. He knew he’d only begun to come to terms with the disastrous turn his life had taken. But at least he had made a start, thanks to Jinn.

After a few minutes, his headache faded, but that left him still dehydrated. He wrapped Jinn’s robe around himself and padded out to the kitchen for a glass of water or two. Jinn was nowhere to be seen, but there was a note on the table that said, “help yourself. I’m in the shop.”

Breakfast was another glass of water and two pieces of bread with butter and fruit preserves from the coldbox. Obi-Wan wondered if Jinn made his own bread too. The rack where his clothes had been drying was gone, but he found his now-dry and clean clothing neatly folded on top of the chest in the bedroom. He dressed, made the bed, fixed himself a cup of strong tea and wandered outside to find Jinn.

There were three outbuildings, not two, as he’d initially thought: the forge, a smallish barn with a paddock, and what Obi-Wan assumed was the workshop, which was tucked behind the barn and invisible from the road. He headed for the latter from whence the faint whine of machinery and the smell of wood soon reached him.

He slipped inside without disturbing Jinn, who was busy running what Obi-Wan decided was a sander over a board, kicking up a fine veil of dust. The workshop, like Jinn’s house, was neatly organized and well-kept. Ranks of chisels and saws and various other tools, many hand-forged, hung above a long workbench that spanned the back wall. Power tools sat on a shelf below it. Several freestanding pieces of equipment lined another wall, and along the third, a big piece of furniture—a sideboard, it looked like—was taking shape. More than just a box with storage, it had a sensual, curvaceous shape with fine detailing on the legs, unlike the very simple pieces that Jinn had made for himself. The top was still missing, and the drawers and shelves, though their places were already framed.

After a while, Jinn shut the sander off, gently blew away a scrim of dust, and ran a hand over the surface of the board. Obi-Wan shivered, watching him, suddenly remembering how that hand felt on his own skin. Jinn pushed the goggles back up his forehead and turned around.

“That’s about how smooth I want it, too,” he grinned, “as smooth as your arse.”

Obi-Wan flushed. “I don’t think my arse is all that smooth anymore.”

“Perhaps not,” Jinn allowed, “but it’s a fine piece of work, nonetheless. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a stone. Though I had a smithy in my head and a mouth full of old laundry when I woke up.”

Jinn laughed. “You seem fine now. Did you manage breakfast?”

“Bread and jam,” he lifted his mug, “and tea. After I flushed the rest of the liquor out. What was that?”

“It’s a twelve-year-old single-grain the miller makes. I hope you appreciate it. It’s a work of art in itself.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “A bit wasted on me, I’m afraid. It’s awfully smooth going down though. I think I owe you a bottle.”

Jinn waved the suggestion away. “That’s what it’s for, medicine for the soul. Good for a cough as well.”

Obi-Wan laughed. “What can I do?” he asked, looking around.

“Anything familiar in here?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I don’t know anything about working with wood. I’m good with machines, though, building and fixing them.”

Jinn’s eyes lit. “Are you, now? I’ve got a bandsaw that’s acting up and I can’t see why. I’ve been afraid to use it lately. It bucks and shudders like a colt and it’s not the blade.”

Obi-Wan felt a sudden sense of relief fill him. This was something he could do. He’d been building and fiddling with machines and equipment and engines for most of his life and there was little he couldn’t repair with the right parts and tools—and sometimes without either—from gear boxes to hyperdrives. “I’ll take a look.”

Jinn showed him the saw, and explained how it worked and how it was behaving, gave him a tool box and left him to it. Obi-Wan disconnected the power source and looked the thing over. By the time Jinn was ready to break for midday meal, Obi-Wan had it in pieces on a drop cloth and was sitting cross-legged on the floor, examining the parts.

They worked together the rest of the afternoon, Obi-Wan tinkering, Jinn doing whatever he was doing, now with a set of chisels. The smell of grease and machine oil mixed pleasantly with the smell of wood, though Obi-Wan was careful to keep the parts clean of sawdust. Late in the afternoon, he looked up at Jinn, who was carving a pattern into the board he’d sanded, and announced, “I know what the problem is.”

Jinn put his tools down and squatted next to him. “You’ve got severe wear here, here, and here,” Obi-Wan said, pointing at various bits and pieces, then picking them up and fitting them together to show the gaps. “That makes the shaft clutch at odd moments, especially when you put stress on it, like when the blade meets a board. Have you got spares for these?”

Jinn shook his head. “I’ll have to tool them myself.”

“You can do that? These are hard alloys—”

“I’ve a small plasma forge for just that purpose. Parts are hard to come by out here; the fuel less so. We’ll do that tomorrow.” Jinn stood up. “Let me finish this bit of carving here, and we’ll quit for the day. I’d best get supper in soon or we won’t be having any.”

 

As they sat down that evening to a steaming meat pie Jinn had used the last of the pie crust on, he said, “What have you been calling yourself, on the way here?”

“I haven’t,” Obi-Wan replied, attention only half on the conversation, his mouth watering. There was beer tonight, home-brewed in Jinn’s barn, carried up in a jug from a tapped barrel in the cellar.

“Good. You’ll need a name here, but we don’t fuss much about identification. If the time comes when you need chips or a slice, I know where to have it done.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow but said nothing. There was no getting around the fact he couldn’t possibly use his own name. The war had made him far too much of a familiar figure if Jinn had recognized him from the holonet. But, “I’ve been giving the problem some thought,” he said. “Bensou Tachinbo should work. It fits with you calling me Ben for short.”

Jinn raised the eyebrow this time. “From where?”

“Bazaar. I’ve been there before, but only undercover, and not with that name. It’s a trade world so there are people from all over, coming and going. They use both Basic and Bocce, and I speak Bocce quite well.”

“Why that name?”

Obi-Wan felt himself flushing, ridiculously. “In Bocce, _Bensou_ means either ‘sentry’ or ‘late frost,’ depending on where you put the emphasis; _Tachinbo_ means either ‘beggar’ or ‘being kept standing without doing anything.’”

Jinn laughed. “So you’re planning on being Sentry Kept Standing About Doing Nothing, or Late Frost Beggar.”

“More the former than the latter, actually,” Obi-Wan grinned, though it faded quickly. “It seems fitting, somehow. If I live long enough, the other’s likely to apply though.”

“No need for you to be a beggar,” Jinn told him kindly. “But we need a cover story for you, to explain why you’re here.”

They spent the rest of dinner concocting one, detailed enough to be realistic, vague enough not to be contradicted. Bensou was an orphan, parents dead of an epidemic on some colony world, and had been a crewman on a merchant vessel, but was tired of the travel. He’d bought passage on the last ship that had come to port here, liking what he’d seen of the land before (that much, at least, was true), and was looking for a homestead. But he’d lost what stake he had, gambling with the crew on the way out. That was the bare bones of it, to be embellished when necessary. It hinted at a shady past without necessarily setting off alarm bells, while still discouraging nosy questions. “A bit like your past,” Obi-Wan observed.

“Not nearly as colorful,” Jinn replied, smiling.

“So you keep saying. You’ve heard my sordid story. I’d like to hear yours. Or will I need the whiskey to loosen your tongue, too?”

“There’s not enough drink in the world, lad, if I decided not to tell it. And it is a sordid tale.” Jinn leaned back in his chair and took a swig from his mug. “Not much remarkable to it in the beginning: born to shipyard workers on Druckenwell. Younger brother, older sister, neither Force sensitive. Found by the Jedi about age three; parents wouldn’t let me go. That’s summat I’ve regretted all my life, until now. As I got older, I think perhaps my parents did too. My talents were strong and wild enough that they didn’t quite know what to do with me and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It made me a bit of a freak. I was, well, not to put too fine a point on it, a not-so-little shit as a teenager.” Jinn smiled, but it was melancholy. “I left home young because of it, and drifted into bad company as foolish young men with summat to prove will do.”

Obi-Wan shook his head but said nothing. This was why the Jedi urged parents to let them take such children. They were difficult for non-Force-sensitives to raise, and if they were strong enough, as Jinn seemed to be, often deeply frustrated by their own lack of control as they got older—never a good combination.

Jinn pushed his plate aside and folded his hands on the table. “The condensed version runs summat like this: From sixteen to twenty I was a petty drug runner in Il Avali. At twenty I got caught and spent five years in jail. I’d always been a strapping big lad and learnt to fight there. I also learnt to like fucking men—which, at that age, was better than being fucked by them. When they let me out—on probation, mind you—I skipped out and found a job as a  roustabout on a rig on Rattatak.” The look on Obi-Wan’s face made him pause. “You’ve been there, I see,” Jinn said.

Obi-Wan nodded. “Not a very pleasant stay, in Sith company. Go on.”

“Not a pleasant place,” Jinn agreed. “I killed a man there, accidentally, in a staged, illegal fight.”

“And ended up in The Cauldron, I’d guess,” Obi-Wan added. Jinn nodded. “You made it out somehow, though. Quite a feat.”

“I wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t learnt to fight already. And if I hadn’t developed some rudimentary Force skills. Thanks to that, I lasted almost a year. One of the Hutts saw me fight and bribed an official for my freedom—so I could fight for him in his own arena.”

“Not Mondo-Mod?”

Jinn looked surprised. “Aye. I’d heard the Jedi had shut him down but—”

“Not me. Luminara Unduli and her padawan, Barriss Offee. More friends who didn’t survive Order 66.”

“Such a waste,” Jinn said sadly. “Mondo was a blight, and I’m glad they shut him down, but he got me out of a slow death sentence. I fought for him for almost three years, until I managed to bribe one of the Hutt’s high rollers into buying me out and setting me up in the Taris Arena. We split my winnings 50-50. And I still made an enormous amount. By the time I got myself cheated out of most of it on a long spree on Farrgho’s Moon, I was 33, and none the wiser for all I’d been through. I think you already know how I made enough to get off that hellhole.” They both smiled wryly.

“I’d been whoring myself out for about a year when I met my first real Jedi, a man named Tholme.”

“Quin’s master! Quinlan Vos—” Obi-Wan exclaimed excitedly, then stopped, as though a switch had been thrown. “Probably dead too, both of them.” He was silent for a moment then looked up again. “I’m sorry. It’s just odd how close our paths have come to crossing before. And it reminds me—Go on.”

But Jinn said, “Tell me about Tholme. I never knew much about him. Who was he?”

“I didn’t know him well, but his last padawan, Quinlan, and I were good friends, and Quin had nothing but admiration for him. Tholme was a Watchman—a Jedi assigned to a particular system or sector. He was,” Obi-Wan paused, remembering, and trying to choose the right words. “He was a hard man, but not the way my master was. His own dedication to the Light and to the Order was absolutely uncompromising. It’s one of the things that saved Quin, later, when he’d fallen to the dark. I think what made Tholme different from my master was that he had a great deal of compassion for others and would go to any lengths to help someone. Dooku had none.”

Jinn nodded. “Aye, that was my impression of Tholme, too. We met in a bar one night, where I was waiting for a client, and he seemed to know exactly who and what I was right off—and I don’t mean my whoring. Asked me straight out what the hell I was doing wasting my life. We talked for hours. I never did meet the client. I’d turned my last trick there, but didn’t yet know it.”

“What did Tholme say?”

“He told me about my talents, about the Force, and what a fool I was. Not shy about knocking heads, that one.”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “No, that was Tholme. No punches pulled. He’d kick your arse well if he thought you needed it.”

“Well, he kicked mine hard enough,” Jinn admitted. “And sent me to my first teacher, a Corellian Jedi by the name of Trynea Yon-Ichoko. Why are you smiling? Did you know her, too?”

“No, but it’s not surprising Tholme sent you to a Corellian Jedi. They’ve always done things their own way. Anyone from the Coruscant temple would have sent you on your way with sympathy and ‘May the Force be with you,’ at that age.”

“Well, she wasn’t happy about it, but she knew Tholme, and she seemed to agree that I needed some kind of training, so she took me on. Most of what she taught me was control, and meditation, not how to use what I had so much as keep it from going wild.”

“That’s the first step for the younglings—” Obi-Wan stopped again and swallowed heavily. “Was,” he corrected.

Jinn reached across the table and squeezed Obi-Wan’s wrist. “I’m sorry, lad. This is hard for you to hear.”

“No,” he said, pulling his hand from Jinn’s grasp and picking up his mug. “No, it’s just . . . I can’t get my mind around it yet, that everyone’s gone. I’ll have to, sooner or later. Don’t let that stop you. I want to hear the rest.” And he took a gulp, blinking hard.

Jinn watched him for a moment then went on. “I stayed with her for about a year, and came out of it, well, a changed man, you might say. I’d lost a good bit of my temper, and started to see who I was. One thing I knew was that I wanted to do summat with the gifts I’d been given. It didn’t seem right anymore to waste them, or ignore them. I went off looking for other teachers.”

“And who did you find?” Obi-Wan asked, curious. He knew there were other Force users scattered across the galaxy, lone ones and various sects, but had run into few of them himself, besides the Sith.

“At first, I spent some time on Cularin. That’s where I learnt carpentry, among all that beautiful wood.”

“Ah, at the Almas Academy,” Obi-Wan said.

One side of Jinn’s mouth quirked up and he laughed. “No, not at the Academy. They wouldn’t take me. There was a settlement there, too, and while I was learning the trade, I met a group who called themselves The Believers.”

Obi-Wan looked horrified. “You studied with _them_?” His voice reflected his shock, going up a notch in volume and pitch. “They’re Sith acolytes! They—”

Jinn held up a hand. “I know what they are, lad, probably better than you. Some of what they said made sense, and I learnt more about the Force from them. But that fortress, the one the Jedi had been set to watch, that place made my skin crawl. I only stayed long enough to learn a bit of wood working.”

Obi-Wan relaxed a bit. “Sorry. Cularin and Almas have been a sore point for some time with the Coruscant temple. I’m surprised the Academy didn’t take you in though. They do take adult students. Did.”

Jinn shrugged. “They must have had their reasons. I’m sure my past didn’t speak well for me. But one of the masters at the Academy told me about the Followers of Palawa. I made my way to Bunduki and stayed there for four years, learning from them and learning a bit more about working with my hands.”

“I’ve heard of the Followers of Palawa but don’t know much about them. The destruction of Palawa isn’t mentioned much in the histories I’ve read. I know they developed a martial art that some of us prac—used to practice.”

“Did you learn it?” Jinn asked curiously.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “No, it wasn’t part of the regular curriculum. I think those Jedi who learned it did so after their temple training, elsewhere. Did you?”

Jinn nodded. “It’s called Teräs Käsi, ‘steel hand.’ It was developed especially for use against the Jedi.”

“Ah, that’s the name. I couldn’t remember. There was some conflict there I don’t know about. What were they like, the Followers?”

“Good people, mostly, though they didn’t much like the Jedi. Having heard their side of the story, I can see why.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it some time. I take it you learned a great deal from them.”

“I did. Better control. New skills. More about what I might be and be able to do. Better fighting skills. And less desire to use them.” Jinn paused. “This is thirsty work. I want more beer. You, lad?”

Obi-Wan covered the top of his mug with a hand. “Not after last night, thanks. It’s water for me.”

“No ‘hair of the dog,’ eh?” Jinn grinned. “I’ll be right back.”

While Jinn was refilling the jug in the cellar, Obi-Wan cleared their plates from the table and started to wash up. “I’ll finish this,” Obi-Wan said when Jinn reappeared. “You tell your story.”

Jinn took Obi-Wan’s seat, facing the sink. “Then I met a Force Warrior, a Trandoshan named Orokur, on Bunduki, and went round with him for a time—I suppose that was a kind of apprenticeship, a bit like yours, maybe. I met a few more in our travels; they all seem to know each other.”

“Any Jedi in the group?” Obi-Wan asked over his shoulder, hands in the sink.

“One, that I met. I’ve heard they’re rare. This one said she hadn’t been back on Coruscant in years. Maybe she managed to evade Palpatine’s troops and the bounty hunters.”

“I hope so. But how we’d ever find each other, I don’t know,” Obi-Wan replied, trying not to get his hopes up. If there were more than he and Yoda left . . .

“Stranger things have happened, lad. You’d be surprised how Force users find one another outside the Jedi. Even the ones that don’t exactly want to be found, like the Fallanassi.”

“Is that who you studied with next?”

“Aye. That’s as close to Coruscant as I ever got, staying on Lucazec. I was there another three years, learning the ways of the White Current.”

“Their version of the Force?”

“A bit different,” Jinn replied, and went on to tell him how. Obi-Wan was beginning to realize that Jinn was far from untrained or ignorant in the ways of the Force, whether a Jedi or not. The further description of his travels and studies only confirmed that. Somehow, he had managed not only to find a living Baran Do Sage, but to stay on Dorin long enough to learn from him, despite the fact that Jinn needed a respirator to survive in the planet’s atmosphere. That made him think of his Kel Dor comrade on the Council, Plo Koon, who had been in the same circumstance in Coruscant’s oxy-rich atmosphere. Obi-Wan found the sheer number of unaffiliated Force users Jinn had run across—let alone the variety of philosophies—simply astonishing. He’d never suspected there were so many outside the Order. Jinn had spent nearly twenty years—almost as long as Obi-Wan’s own training and apprenticeship—finding teachers for himself around the galaxy, dark and light and grey. He’d found old writings, obscure cults, shamans, sorcerers, seers, and warriors to learn from. He was certainly knowledgeable, but Obi-Wan had no sense yet of what he’d learned to do with his abilities.

“And then I found the Aing-Tii monks,” Jinn continued, “or rather they found me. I spent another three years with them, learning about time and the colors of the Force.”

Obi-Wan had rejoined him at the table after finishing the washing up and making himself a cup of tea. Jinn still had his beer in front of him, a third or fourth mug, though he seemed no worse for wear.

“The Aing-Tii—I thought they were legends.”

“No, they’re real enough,” Jinn confirmed. “They don’t interact much with the rest of us though. When I realized that, later, I was surprised they’d taken me on. They were the last of my teachers, though I’ve managed to learn a bit wherever I go. Even here.”

“And what brought you here?”

Jinn smiled mysteriously. “I think I’ll leave that part of the tale until later. I’m far enough into my cups tonight. I’ll have a pipe and read a while—” he yawned extravagantly “—then wash up and go to bed. Make free with the reading material, if you like.”

Obi-Wan took his mug of tea and wandered back to the bedroom to peruse Jinn’s library. It didn’t take long to realize how extraordinary it was. Most of it had something to do with philosophies of the Force and much of it was ancient and in more formats than he’d first thought. There were books of paper, vellum, and other materials and various kinds of bindings; scrolls; two holocrons; discs, crystals, chips and their associated readers. There were philosophies, histories, legends and myths, biographies, treatises, monographs, and dry government reports. Even the fiction seemed to have something to do with Jedi, Sith, or other Force users. There were volumes that Obi-Wan had never suspected existed, from cultures all over the galaxy, in a number of different languages. He wondered if Jinn had read them all or merely collected them. The amount of information was impressive, and would have been staggering if he hadn’t seen the Temple library. Now, Jinn’s collection was possibly the largest repository in existence.

The most surprising subject was the poetry, and even some of it was written by Force users. One entire shelf near the floor was devoted to it, and the paper volumes had been well-thumbed. Obi-Wan would not have expected such a romantic sensibility of the man in the other room. But appearances were often deceiving. He should have known that as well as anyone.

Obi-Wan gently removed one volume of a series called _The Journals of the Whills_ and opened it, quickly becoming engrossed, though it was written in an archaic form of Basic. He walked slowly back into the other room, still reading, and sprawled out on the soft cushions of the couch, listening to the soft creak of Jinn’s chair, the pleasant smell of the man’s pipe filling the air.

 

Some time later, gentle hands sifted through his hair and he started awake. “Wash up and come to bed, lad,” Jinn said quietly. “You fell asleep reading.”

Logy and only half-awake, Obi-Wan staggered to the fresher to wash, and slipped in beside Jinn in the big bed. The man himself was already asleep by the time Obi-Wan huddled down beneath the covers in the warm bed. He curled up on his side of it, feeling a vast and lonely space at his back, though Jinn was only a handspan away from him. The sense of being utterly alone fell heavily on him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden tears and wrapped his arms around himself, willing sleep to find him, but it was a long time coming.

 

He woke some time later in the dark, gasping and shivering, with Jinn’s arms around him.

“It’s all right, lad, it’s all right,” the man murmured.

Obi-Wan didn’t know where he was for a moment, or who was with him, and struggled out of Jinn’s arms to the side of the bed. He’d been back on Mustafar, chasing Anakin through blood-red heat and fire, but this time, Anakin had risen up from the sands, burning, looming over Obi-Wan like a solid shadow, only his face visible in the lurid light, his eyes like two coals. _This is your fault!_ this Anakin shouted, a red saber suddenly appearing in the only hand he had left, the one that wasn’t flesh and blood. And Obi-Wan had been unable to parry it. The red blade sank hilt-deep into his chest, spearing his heart. He’d woken in searing pain, crying out at least in his own mind, if not aloud. Now he stood at the side of the bed rubbing his chest, willing the pain to stop. _No. That hadn’t happened—_

Jinn sat up and held out a hand to him. “Come back to bed, lad,” he coaxed. “It’s all right now. Come on.”

Obi-Wan shook himself, remembering where he was, and crept back into bed silently. He huddled down in the covers again, but this time, Jinn fitted himself against Obi-Wan’s back and held him close. “Go to sleep, lad,” he murmured, stroking Obi-Wan’s hair. It was only later that Obi-Wan realized it had been a Force suggestion, and a strong one.

* * *

He woke late again when the sun was well up and Jinn had already gone back to his workshop. Obi-Wan found him this time in the forge, not at the big coal hearth but at a smaller, hotter hearth to one side, where he was already turning something in the unbearably bright glow. Jinn was dressed not in his leather apron but in a welder’s mask and flameproof coveralls, and Obi-Wan stayed well back until Jinn shut the forge down and stepped away, flipping the mask up.

“They’ll need to cool now. I’ll machine them tomorrow. Have you done that before?” Jinn asked him.

Obi-Wan nodded. “Well enough to limp home, though I’m no expert.”

“We’ll see what you can do, then, and I’ll teach you more, if you like.”

“I would. It’s a useful skill and I—I’ll need to do something . . . something with myself,” he finished lamely.

Jinn squeezed his shoulder. “Let me show you summat,” he said, stripping out of the coveralls, hanging them up, and leading Obi-Wan outside toward the barn.

Jinn’s two big draft horses were outside in the paddock and ambled over as Obi-Wan and the smith approached. Jinn detoured briefly to greet them, taking sugar cubes from a pocket of his work apron and offering them on a flat palm for one of the horses to lip from him. “This is Thorim,” Jinn said, giving Obi-Wan two more cubes and patting his horse’s neck. Obi-Wan offered the cubes to the other horse, who took it from his palm with surprising delicacy for something so big. “And this is Lokai,” Jinn added, indicating the one Obi-Wan had fed. “He’ll nip your arse looking for more sugar, if you don’t watch him, but he’s a good lad, aren’t you?” Jinn gave him a pat too.

“Thorim and Lokai?” Obi-Wan asked.

“God of storms and the trickster god of crossroads, respectively, in some set of myths I’ve forgotten now. Thorim makes a lot of noise when he’s in a hurry, with those big feet of his. Lokai’s the one who nips your arse when you aren’t paying attention.”

Obi-Wan smiled. He’d forgotten how wry and clever Jinn’s sense of humor was. It had surprised him, the first time, to realize this man who was so skillful in creating pain and divining one’s darkest desires seemed to be quietly entertained by ordinary things like animals and weather.

They went into the barn, where Jinn took down a leather-wrapped bundle from a rack of other tools. Two long, curved steel swords lay within, blades oiled, single edges gleaming sharply, straight hilts wrapped in strips of leather with only a small, disk-like guard on each. Jinn handed one to Obi-Wan, hilt first.

Obi-Wan examined it carefully, noting the pattern of the steel’s working, and the smooth curve of the blade. He didn’t know a lot about the making of edged weapons, but his training in their use had been thorough, and he knew this was a good one. It felt right in his hands, like it had been made for them. Since it was obviously a two-handed weapon  like his lightsaber, Obi-Wan tested its weight and balance using the forms he was most familiar with. It felt completely different in his hands—longer, lighter, more uniformly balanced—but nonetheless loaned itself well to use in lightsaber katas. Jinn watched him with a keen interest, arms crossed.

 “This is beautiful,” Obi-Wan said at last, coming to rest after several minutes of exercise, flushed but not yet sweating. It had been so long since he’d done katas and it felt wonderful, even though he was rusty. He held the sword out to Jinn by the hilt and the big smith took it and set it down with its mate, eyes fixed on Obi-Wan’s face.

“So are you, lad,” Jinn said gruffly, standing up again. He pulled Obi-Wan to him by the front of his shirt and Jinn’s mouth came down hard on Obi-Wan’s, his tongue opening Obi-Wan’s lips and pushing inside. Obi-Wan let out a muffled yelp of surprise, then grabbed Jinn’s arms hard and pushed back into his mouth, tasting, devouring. Jinn smelled of heat and sweat and the forge; his mouth tasted of tea and pipe smoke. The taste and smell and touch were intoxicating and instantly arousing. Obi-Wan _wanted_ , suddenly, with a desperation he seldom realized he possessed.

So did Jinn.

In short order, they were stripping each other between brutal kisses and it was hard to say who pushed whom down into the straw first. Jinn ended up on top initially, Obi-Wan’s hands gripping his ass as they slid against one another, mouths locked or nipping at one another. Then Obi-Wan flipped them over and sat back, letting Jinn’s prick glide along his balls, watching as the big man shuddered and closed his eyes, his hands leaving bruises on Obi-Wan’s thighs.

This wasn’t like their encounter that first morning, when Obi-Wan had needed an anchor and a shield to blot out the memories. He simply wanted Jinn. Wanted him the way he had during those five days they’d been together years ago, when they’d fucked twice a day, every day, in the inn’s narrow bed or a grassy field or one of the orchards or near the river. He wanted Jinn’s cock up his arse, wanted to make the man come and watch animal pleasure replace sentience on his face.

“Up, lad,” Jinn growled. “Lean up, on your knees.” He put two fingers to his mouth and slicked them, then pushed inside as Obi-Wan knelt up over him. Obi-Wan cried out as they went in, not because Jinn wasn’t careful, but because it was just what he wanted. Jinn found the sweet spot and rubbed those blunt fingers over it, sending shocks up Obi-Wan’s spine, making his knees shake, pulling a low, guttural moan out of him.

“Is that good, lad?” Jinn demanded in a harsh voice. “Tell me.”

“Yes. Yes, it’s good—oh gods!” Obi-Wan yelped as Jinn rubbed hard across his prostate, making him shiver convulsively. “Gods I want you!”

Impatiently, Obi-Wan pulled Jinn’s hand away, spat in his own and slicked Jinn’s cock, then pressed himself down on it by slow increments. Little gods, the man was big! “So much—!” Obi-Wan gasped, lowering himself and feeling painfully stretched and impossibly filled. Jinn struggled not to buck up into him, rocking in tiny movements beneath him, his hands flexing on Obi-Wan’s thighs. Both of them were panting by the time Obi-Wan had sunk all the way down and Jinn was fully sheathed. Obi-Wan leaned down and kissed Jinn again, running his hands up the long torso, over the rosy nipples rucking up beneath his palms, pulling the tie from Jinn’s braid and untangling the hair to plunge his fingers into it.

When he broke away, Jinn snarled, “move, damn you!” and bucked up into him.

Obi-Wan did, rising and falling slowly on the rasp of Jinn’s prick, watching the man’s face transform from harsh planes of desire to the softening curves of pleasure. He took Jinn’s big, rough hand and closed it around his own cock, setting a rhythm to match and soon enough, they were both ready to go up. Jinn went first, and Obi-Wan watched hungrily as the man’s head tipped back and his mouth opened in a harsh gasp as his eyelids fluttered. A deep groan rolled out of him as he bucked up into Obi-Wan, emptying himself, one hand squeezing Obi-Wan’s cock, the other scrabbling at the straw.

And that was all it took to send Obi-Wan over the edge himself, his spunk spattering Jinn’s chest as he shouted his release.

A moment later, as he was still quivering with aftershocks, Jinn pulled him down, the smith’s arms going round him like a band of iron. “Sweet lad,” he murmured, nuzzling into Obi-Wan’s hair. “Sweet, sweet lad.” One rough hand stroked slowly up and down his back, cupping and squeezing his arse at every downstroke, until Jinn’s softening cock slipped from him. He felt both abandoned and sore when it was gone. Obi-Wan could hear Jinn’s heart banging in his chest then slowing to a calm rhythm. It was a deeply comforting sound and he closed his eyes, sinking into it.

Both of them must have dozed off, he thought later when Jinn shifted beneath him. “Up, lad,” he murmured, kissing the top of Obi-Wan’s head. “A stone floor’s a cold, hard place for an old man like me, no matter how warm the blanket. And you’re plenty warm.”

Blinking sleepily, he stood up and stretched and looked down at Jinn, who had propped himself up on his elbows in the straw and was looking at Obi-Wan just as hungrily. Jinn’s eyes were hooded and his face, still flushed, had gone soft in the barn’s dim light. He looked as sleepy as Obi-Wan felt, and as sated.

“Aye,” Jinn murmured, smiling, “I imagine we’ve both got that well-fucked look.”

“Only because we were,” Obi-Wan laughed and offered a hand up. The smith took it and Obi-Wan was struck again by how solid and graceful the man was, despite his age.

“Still spry for an old goat,” Jinn confirmed with a glint of mischief.

“Not that old, I suspect,” Obi-Wan returned.

“Older than I look but younger than I am,” he replied mysteriously. “How old are you, lad? I’d guessed about thirty-five.”

“Thirty-seven.”

Jinn kissed his teeth and shook his head. “ _Tscha_. I _am_ cradle-robbing.” He leaned down and kissed Obi-Wan soundly again. “I feel randy as a lad again, with you.”

“Turn around, you old fool,” Obi-Wan said, laughing when they broke away. “Your hair’s full of straw. You look like a wild man.”

When they’d picked the straw from each other and cleaned up, they dressed again and returned to the swords. “You made these?” Obi-Wan asked, picking the second one up and trying its balance. It was quite a bit longer than the one Jinn had first handed him, both the hilt and the blade, and the balance was completely wrong for him.

“Aye, and a few others, as well as hunting knives,” Jinn replied, tying up his hair again. “That’s how I started. These are the best though, and I kept them for myself.”

“Why?” Obi-Wan asked, curious. “They’re an archaic weapon.”

“But an elegant one,” Jinn countered. “My people have been metal workers for generations. It’s something I learnt to do early. Any smith can shoe a horse or mend a tool. Learning to make swords is a smith’s equivalent of high art.”

Obi-Wan nodded, understanding the impulse to push one’s skills to the limit of one’s abilities, and perhaps beyond. “Do you know how to use them?”

Jinn smiled slyly at that. “I was hoping someday I might find a teacher.”

Obi-Wan returned the sly smile and extended the hilt of the sword toward Jinn.

In the end, Obi-Wan only showed Jinn how to hold it that afternoon. They started instead, as every novice did, with unarmed katas. Jinn learned them quickly and performed them with a grace that again surprised Obi-Wan in someone Jinn’s size. The man was completely at home in his body, fully present in it at every moment, and fully in control of it. No wonder he’d wielded the flail with such skill years before. It wouldn’t be long, Obi-Wan thought, before the katas were as much second nature to Jinn as they were to Obi-Wan.

They worked for an hour or two, Jinn mirroring him in the barn’s cool light, then went in to mid-meal, by which time both of them were ravenous. Jinn spent the afternoon in his wood shop and Obi-Wan with him, inspecting the rest of Jinn’s machinery, greasing them up when necessary and replacing worn parts when Jinn had them on hand. Others he made a list of so Jinn could machine new ones. They went in to make dinner together afterwards.

“I’ll have to go into the village soon,” Jinn said, setting the steaming plates down, “to deliver that sideboard and pick up a few things. We can get you some new clothing for winter. It comes in hard here and it won’t be long before you’ll need it. Your boots won’t do, for one thing. And they should be resoled, at least.”

“What money I’ve got—”

“Is probably no good here,” Jinn nodded above his forkful. “I suspected that from the state you were in when you got here. As it happens, you won’t need it. I’ve more than enough put away to cover both our needs. And before you protest, it’s not charity. You’ve pulled your weight, lad. You’re better with mechanical things than I am, that’s plain. If you’ll maintain what I’ve got, I’ll teach you what I know.” Jinn looked up. “And you’ll teach me what you know, hey?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Fair enough.”

And there was no more said about it.

 

That night, after they’d soaked together and washed each other in the bath, they lay in bed not like two acquaintances, but like lovers. Something had changed between them that afternoon in the barn; some barrier had fallen allowing both of them to acknowledge the growth of something deeper between them than simply need or kindness. Obi-Wan was starting to lose the anxiety of being on the run and finding some of the calm center he’d lost in his flight, enough to see that Jinn was offering him more than just compassion, though what it was, exactly, he couldn’t yet say. So they explored one another, learning each others bodies more thoroughly than they had in the first five days, so many years ago, when what Obi-Wan needed was to know himself. Ten years later, he knew who he was. What he wanted now was to know Jinn.

“Were these for fun or profit?” Obi-Wan asked, tracing a spattering of faint white lines on Jinn’s shoulders.

“For punishment,” Jinn replied. “In prison.” He was lying on his stomach in the big bed, covers pooled around his waist as Obi-Wan learned his way around.

Wincing in sympathy, Obi-Wan leaned down now and kissed them lightly, tracing one long, jagged line with his tongue. Jinn quivered, his breath hitching. “Not that I didn’t deserve them,” he added, voice catching as Obi-Wan moved on down his back with lips and tongue.

“No one deserves that,” Obi-Wan murmured against the small of Jinn’s back, “unless they want it. I suspect you didn’t.”

“No. But that said, I was thick-headed lad who’d not learn any other way. And it was worth it to feel your mouth there, all these years later.”

“How about here?” Obi-Wan said, pushing the covers down and parting the cheeks of Jinn’s arse. He licked along the crack, tasting clean sweat and smelling only soap. Jinn shuddered hard and pushed himself up on his hands in shock as Obi-Wan’s tongue worked around and pressed into the tight opening of his body. He dropped back onto his elbows with a deep groan, head hanging and breath short.

“I see you like this,” Obi-Wan observed smugly. “Hand me a pillow.” Jinn did, and Obi-Wan pushed it under the man’s hips, raising them a little, then went back to work. Jinn spread his legs and moaned as Obi-Wan continued down over his perineum and back up, teasing. Finally, Jinn snarled at him, “By all the gods! Get a finger or summat in there! You’ll drive me mad!”

Obi-Wan grinned to himself and poured a bit of oil he’d brought in from the fresher down the crack of Jinn’s arse and worked it inside with a finger. He knew precisely when he’d hit Jinn’s prostate by the gasp and shudder it evoked. The man went up on his knees and elbows then and pushed back, moaning helplessly. “Oh gods, lad, that’s good. Don’t stop.”

Obi-Wan added another finger and was rewarded with a startled whimper. He pushed in farther and quicker and Jinn cried out and buried his face in his own pillow, trembling. Remembering Jinn’s fingers in his hole that afternoon, Obi-Wan worked his own in the same way, careful to hit the sweet spot on each probing stroke until Jinn was writhing and bucking.

“Do it now, lad,” Jinn said at last in a thick voice, “or I’ll be too close to make it last for either of us. It’s been too long.”

Happy to oblige, Obi-Wan slicked himself and pushed slowly inside as Jinn pushed back. Only then did he realize how much he’d wanted this, wanted Jinn under him, needy and hard for him. Jinn’s cock jumped in his hand as Obi-Wan closed his fist around it. It was nearly as hard as the hilt of the sword he’d held that afternoon, and bigger around, the skin soft as glove leather. Jinn growled as he squeezed and pulled and shuddered hard when Obi-Wan ran his thumb over the leaking head, dragging a nail into the slit.

“Fuck me, damn you,” Jinn snarled. “Do it now!”

And Obi-Wan did, holding Jinn’s hips and driving himself in. The man was so tight around him and so ready that it wasn’t long before both of them went up in a haze of light, together.

 

Obi-Wan came back to himself lying half against Jinn with one leg between the bigger man’s and an arm around his waist. Jinn was asleep or unconscious, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure which, long hair curtaining his face. Obi-Wan pushed it back carefully and watched the man’s eyes open slowly, as though he were drugged. Obi-Wan felt the same way. The smile Jinn gave him was sly and knowing as he stretched languorously and then pulled Obi-Wan closer and kissed him. “That was sweet, lad,” he rumbled, voice a half-octave lower and still thick with pleasure. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Obi-Wan responded sincerely. “Quite literally.”

Jinn ran a hand down Obi-Wan’s arm in a caress, then stopped, frowning. The flesh  under his fingers was oddly dimpled, above and below Obi-Wan’s elbow, nearly down to his wrist. “That feels like scars, maggot scars,” Jinn said.

“It is,” Obi-Wan confirmed.

“The Sith company you mentioned, on Rattatak?”

“Yes.”

“I see we’ve both got our own painful tales,” Jinn observed sadly. “I know how much those hurt, lad. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He took Jinn’s face between his hands and kissed him gently: eyes, cheeks, mouth, where he lingered and Jinn reciprocated in equal gentleness. “It was worth it to feel your hands there, now.” They pulled up the covers and moved into each other’s arms, settling down into sleep.

 

And once again, Obi-Wan dreamed: of finding the younglings in the Temple, dead of blaster and lightsaber; of friends cut down by their own troops; of Mustafar and Anakin. He woke sweating and disoriented, his chest on fire, run through not by a lightsaber this time, but by one of Jinn’s swords, his blood spilling onto the fiery black sands and turning to smoke at his feet, Anakin’s accusation ringing in his ears as his own life slipped away: _You failed me! This is your fault! You failed all of them!_

Once again, Jinn gentled him down, coaxed him back into bed, and sent him back into a Force-aided sleep to wake alone in bed late in the morning.

The following days ran to much the same rhythm and pattern: work in the shop or the forge in the morning and early afternoon, katas afterward, a quiet dinner, talk or reading, then bed, where they fell into sleep or made love first, depending on how strenuous the day’s activities had been. Some days later, Jinn and Obi-Wan loaded the finished sideboard onto Jinn’s wagon—Obi-Wan trying to tell how much Jinn was levitating it, and how much was purely muscle—hitched the horses to it and took it into the village, where he and Jinn unloaded it again at the one big house there. When they came out to the wagon again, Jinn counted out half the scrip he’d been paid and held it out to Obi-Wan.

“Part of what I owe you for your labors, lad. That should get you some winter clothing. I’ll pick us up some more provisions and meet you back here.”

The shopkeeper, an attractive, dark-haired woman about Obi-Wan’s age, was talkative and helped him pick out a good coat, gloves, and boots. He found himself some new trousers and shirts and small clothes as well, to replace the well-worn things he’d come out with, few as they were.

“Come in on the last ship?” the shopkeeper, Erinea, asked.

“Yes. I thought I’d look for a homestead out here. Unfortunately, I lost most of my stake before I even got here.”

“Gambling?” she raised an eyebrow, making an astute guess. “You look smarter than that.”

“It’s a weakness,” Obi-Wan muttered, looking suitably embarrassed. “And that’s the last of it I’ll be doing.”

“So Master Jinn’s put you up and given you something to do.” She filled in the story herself and Obi-Wan let her. “Well, he’s a good man, you’ll find, though he keeps to himself most of the time. What’re you doing for him?”

“Mending his machines, mostly.”

“A mechanic!” She seemed delighted. “We’ve needed one of those. Now I’m hoping you’ll stay, especially if Jinn thinks you’re any good.”

“He seems to, so maybe I will,” Obi-Wan replied and smiled, paying her and taking his packages.

* * *

Word of his skills apparently got around quickly. Gradually over the weeks, people from the village brought Obi-Wan their tools and equipment to fix. He and Jinn soon gained a reputation for “better than new” repairs, between Obi-Wan’s skill with the mechanical and Jinn’s ability to make whatever part was required. Obi-Wan added what he made with his repairs to the common funds, but Jinn insisted he keep some himself. “If need be,” he pointed out, “you can change it for Republic currency at the port, or better yet, turn it to coin. Good metal will always get you something nearly anywhere.”

Under Jinn’s tutelage, he learned the finer points of machining and far more about metalworking. Under Obi-Wan’s, Jinn quickly mastered the unarmed katas and the first of the armed ones. They practiced those only in the barn, out of sight, but Jinn started to join him in his evening meditations, and sometimes the morning ones as well, though Obi-Wan continued to be a relatively late riser after his continuing troubled nights.

He couldn’t seem to shake the dreams. Each night brought some fresh hell, some new accusation from Anakin’s doppelganger, a new reminder of what he’d seen in the Temple. He woke with a hard, sharp pain in his chest—or weeping, just as often. Nothing could fend them off, not even Jinn’s arms or his Force suggestions. He began to dread going to bed, and that began to tell.

Jinn finally banned him from working in the forge when he managed to injure himself machining a part. It wasn’t a serious injury, but it was a bloody one and Obi-Wan knew Jinn was right. He wasn’t alert enough to work, but work was the only thing keeping him sane. With one hand in bandages, there was little else he could do, so he sat in Jinn’s kitchen with a cup of tea going cold in front of him, the deep gash on his palm a fresh, throbbing reminder of his own inadequacy.

Sidelined and idle, he had too much time to think, too much time to remember, and nothing to do but sit at Jinn’s table, brooding. Even months later, everything was still fresh in his mind, as though it had just happened. Part of that was the dreams that came to him every night, but part of it was his own guilt. He’d been such a fool: apprentice to a future Sith, master to another, blind to both their faults, to his own visions, to everything the Force had tried to tell him. How had he missed it all? Even Jinn had known better—

He was startled out of his reverie by the man’s hand on his shoulder. Was it midday already? How long had he been sitting here? “Don’t you think it’s a wee bit arrogant to be shouldering all the blame for the fall of the Republic yourself?” Jinn asked gently.

Obi-Wan looked up and laughed bitterly. “Someone has to. I’m the only one left. And it was my apprentice who helped mur—” His voice caught. “—murder . . . all those . . . little ones.” He could hardly get the words out suddenly.

“And your fellow Councillors who ignored the signs as much as you did, who failed to realize what Palpatine was until it was too late, who let your own master go without so much as a tail on him to see what he’d do with himself. Even I know that Jedi don’t just leave the Order. The first thing I’d’ve done was watch him when he left, see what he got himself up to.”

Obi-Wan looked away. Jinn was right about that much, at least. But there was one area of responsibility he couldn’t set aside so easily. Anakin. Surely even Jinn could see that?

“We all choose our own paths, lad,” Jinn reminded him. “It’s not that you didn’t teach him well. I’ve reason to know you’re a fine teacher. It’s that he didn’t _learn_. In another time, in other circumstances, he might have had more time to grasp what you were really trying to teach him: how to master himself. That’s what we all must do in the end, isn’t it? Master ourselves. That’s what you’re struggling with now.”

Obi-Wan shifted uneasily in his chair. Jinn was far too perspicacious for comfort. “Still, I should have killed him. I shouldn’t have—”

Jinn reached over and lightly cuffed his head in exasperation. “What am I going to have to do, lad? Beat it out of you?”

Obi-Wan looked up at him with an awful hope in his eyes.

Jinn closed his eyes and turned away, his face filled with pain of a different kind. “Ah, lad, I’m sorry I mentioned that,” he murmured. “I hoped—” He shook his head. “You’re punishing yourself well enough without help from me.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be such a mess,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “I don’t know what else to do. Meditation doesn’t help. Work only sublimates it.”

“Time. Give yourself time. It’s not that long—”

Obi-Wan sank his head into his uninjured hand, his fingers fisting in his hair, and said nothing. The silence stretched into long, heavy minutes. If Jinn wouldn’t help him . . . well, there was always his saber. Was he that desperate now? Right now? Yes. Yes, he decided. Yes, he was that desperate. Another night of Anakin’s accusations, he thought, might completely undo him. It was unbearable to think he’d been the cause, even indirectly, of the deaths of so many people, so many—who was he kidding?— _all_ of his friends and people he’d loved. And there would only be more he could do nothing to prevent, because of his moment of weakness. Force knew what a danger he was to Jinn and these people, staying here. Better off dead—

“All right, lad,” Jinn said heavily, breaking through Obi-Wan’s misery. “I’ll get my tools.”

* * *

It was different this time, in so many ways. He knew exactly what he wanted, and knew what it would feel like. Most of all, he knew why he wanted it, needed it. And this time, for the first time, someone who cared for him, someone he trusted, would give it to him, for all the right reasons.

Jinn didn’t ask him again if he was sure, didn’t question what he’d asked for, or second-guess him. He’d looked saddened, and nodded. “This once,” he’d said. “No more.” And Obi-Wan agreed. It would be enough, he hoped.

He and Jinn went to the barn together, Jinn carrying a satchel he’d taken from the trunk stored in the loft and a bucket of water. They passed the horses in the paddock, who watched them with anticipation, hoping for a treat. Inside the barn, the afternoon light was cool and dim, drawing bars across the floor and walls from the slits between the boards. It smelled of straw and the not-unpleasant tang of manure, and country air. He handed off the pail and satchel to Obi-Wan. “Set those down near the block and tackle, lad.”

When he’d closed the door, Jinn stood silently for a moment and Obi-Wan could feel the Force weaving itself into something unfamiliar around them. No, it was Jinn doing the weaving and shaping. Obi-Wan had never felt anything like it before. He watched as Jinn turned in a slow, tight circle where he stood, hands held palm out before him, near his heart, as though pushing something. When he’d completed the circle, he let out a deep breath and opened his eyes, meeting Obi-Wan’s curious gaze.

“A Fallanassi Force Immersion. The barn will seem empty to anyone who might come by. Not that anyone will, but you never know. People have an odd way of turning up at awkward times,” Jinn said with a wry smile. “But we won’t be interrupted. Do you want the bit or do you want to make noise? It won’t be heard out here, behind the illusion.”

Obi-Wan hesitated a moment, uncertain. Jinn brushed his large, blunt fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair. “I’d get it all out if I was you, lad. ”

Silently, Obi-Wan nodded. He might not have another chance.

Jinn led them over to the edge of the barn’s loft, where the chains of a pulley dangled from the roof beam. He turned to Obi-Wan then and seemed about to say something. Instead, he sank one hand into Obi-Wan’s lengthening hair, pulling his head back, his mouth coming down hard on Obi-Wan’s. He opened to Jinn, who plunged his tongue inside, devouring Obi-Wan’s mouth, drinking him in as though he might never again. Jinn’s other hand found the buttons of his shirt and opened them, pulled the tails out of his trousers, then pushed it off his shoulders until it fell to the stone floor. Obi-Wan moaned into Jinn’s mouth as the man’s big fingers pinched his nipple hard.

“Sweet lad,” Jinn murmured, pulling back. “Take your boots off. Then hold out your hands, wrists together.”

Obi-Wan did as he was told. The stone floor, though littered with straw, was still cold beneath his bare feet. He held out his hands, and Jinn wrapped a long strip of leather around and between his wrists, binding them together, and tied it tightly, then started to tuck thick bits of soft wool between the thongs and Obi-Wan’s skin.

“That’s not necessary,” Obi-Wan told him.

“It is,” Jinn insisted, continuing to tuck the wool around the bindings. “You’ll be bearing most of your weight on these. I won’t have it cutting you down to the bone. I know my business, Master Kenobi. I said I’d give you what you need. Leave me to it.”

Obi-Wan did.

Jinn led him closer to the pulley and its hook and raised his arms to it, slipping the hook between his wrists so it caught the leather bindings. Chains rattled and the hook rose, stretching Obi-Wan’s arms over his head until he was up on the balls of his feet. Jinn locked the pulley there. His mouth was almost even with Jinn’s now, and the big man captured it again, plundering it until Obi-Wan was gasping. He tasted smoke from Jinn’s pipe, the tea they’d both had for lunch. It surprised him to realize how much he’d grown to love the taste of Jinn’s mouth.

Jinn stepped back then, brow furrowed and eyes full of sorrow. “Aye, lad, it’s as sweet as your mouth to me. I never thought—”

He stopped then, and turned away, shoulders gone rigid. Obi-Wan wanted to touch him, run his hands down that long back, trace the scars there with his lips and tongue again. Jinn quivered like one of his horses, as though Obi-Wan were indeed touching him.

“Enough, you,” he growled, turning again. His open palm struck Obi-Wan’s cheek hard enough to turn his head and leave a stinging handprint. It was shocking in a way another blow elsewhere would not have been, and strangely humiliating. Obi-Wan looked away, eyes stinging. Jinn let his mouth roam over Obi-Wan’s neck and shoulders, sucking and biting as one hand pulled his head back again. The other popped the shank buttons on Obi-Wan’s trousers and slid inside his small clothes, closing over his genitals. He was already hard, wanting this, wanting Jinn’s touch. “Look at you,” Jinn growled. “You think you’re going to like this, like the last time.” Jinn squeezed his prick, pulling it up over the waistband and out of his fly. “It’s not the same now, lad. That script you wrote? I don’t give a damn about that. There’s no safeword I’ll listen to. This time you’ll get what you deserve, not what you want.”

Obi-Wan’s breath caught at that in a sudden spike of fear, even as Jinn’s rough, calloused hands slid inside his trousers and small clothes and pushed them down and off. Jinn piled them with his boots and shirt, and let Obi-Wan twist in the cool air for a time as he walked a slow circle around him. He shivered, feeling Jinn’s gaze on him when he stopped behind, out of sight. Those big hands closed on his ass then, kneading, slipping into his crack, teasing his hole. Obi-Wan wriggled like a hooked fish, whimpering, wanting that touch, wanting more despite the fear. Suddenly, Jinn slapped his ass, hard, and he cried out in surprise. The sting of it was as much a shock as the face slap had been, and it burned brightly against his skin.

Jinn’s long body pressed up against him from behind and hands found his nipples, pinching and pulling, until both were throbbing, needy little peaks and Obi-Wan was writhing and moaning. Jinn’s shirt was gone, and his breath was hot on Obi-Wan’s neck as he nipped hard at the join of neck and shoulder. There would be teethmarks and bruises there when they’d done, Obi-Wan thought. No more than he deserved. The buckle of Jinn’s belt dug into Obi-Wan’s back, and the metal buttons of his fly rubbed in the crack of his ass. He could feel the thick shaft behind them as well. He wanted it, wanted it now, already, but he was less sure that Jinn would actually fuck him this time.

Jinn stepped back and Obi-Wan heard the slither of leather against cloth, knew it was Jinn’s belt coming off. Tensing, he listened for the soft swish of the wind-up and was startled to feel instead just the curved edge of it dragged up the back of his leg and over his ass.

“Is this what you want, lad?” Jinn growled, reaching around front to cup his testicles, tracing the coiled belt over the back of his knee and up over his cheeks again. Obi-Wan nodded, panting.

“Tell me why,” Jinn demanded harshly.

“I deserve it,” he said, head hanging. “I failed. I failed Anakin. I failed the Order.”

“Yes, you did. And now you’re going to pay for it.” And Obi-Wan heard the soft slither and swish of leather and a band of fire erupted across his ass as the belt came down. He yelped and twitched reflexively away, but another caught him across the back of his thighs, and then a third stroke higher still on his ass again. He yelped with each one and flinched away, but this was nothing, nothing. Jinn laid another across his shoulders and over his back and Obi-Wan yelped and flinched, rattling the chain that held him suspended. Jinn stopped and let him feel it, tracing the hot stripes with his fingers.

“You’ve not even started to sweat yet, lad. You’ve learnt a bit since we last danced, hey?” Jinn’s voice and diction had gone harsh.

Obi-Wan nodded. There had been others, less skilled than Jinn, some more brutal, one he’d had to push into a wall with the Force to stop, then free himself. All of them less memorable. Oh, yes, he’d learned a bit since that first time. But in his shameful little fantasies it had always been Jinn’s hands holding the flogger or flail or cane, Jinn’s hands spreading him, Jinn fucking him.

“How many, boy? How many after me?”

“I—I don’t know.” Obi-Wan squirmed uncomfortably, feeling his face heat up.

“How many?” Jinn repeated, and laid another stripe across his back with the belt.

Obi-Wan cried out and jerked away. “I don’t know! A dozen, maybe.”

“You sorry little boy,” Jinn mocked him. “The Jedi not strict enough? You had to run off somewhere for a beating when you made a mistake to feel you’d been properly punished? Or was it just when you didn’t feel up to the job?”

Obi-Wan gaped at Jinn like a fish, reeling. “What? No! I never—not at first—it wasn’t—” He tried to deny it, but it was true. It was true.

“Yes, it was,” Jinn sneered, and striped him again. “It was just like that. You couldn’t handle him. He was too powerful and you were too weak. Your master was right about you.”

It was the buckle that came down on his ass this time, raising a welt instantly, maybe breaking the skin. Obi-Wan yelled and jerked away. The pain was sharp, not burning, and deep. Another bruise, but not as deep as the one in his heart. Jinn had guessed his deepest fear.

“If it’s punishment you want, I’m the one to give it to you, boy.”

Jinn moved around front, and laid the leather across his nipples, already sensitized and throbbing. He hadn’t been expecting that and it pulled another surprised yell from him as he jerked away. His shoulders had started to burn now, too, and his calves. His injured hand throbbed even as he wrapped both around the chain to hold himself up.

The belt lashed across his belly, driving the air out, paralyzing his diaphragm. Before he could recover, Jinn caught his cock in the stinging curl of the heavy leather. Obi-Wan shrieked soundlessly, deprived of air, and bucked as blinding pain exploded through his groin, spreading outward in a wave. It pulled his legs up off the floor so he was dangling from his bonds. He swung like a piece of meat on a butcher’s hook for a moment, gasping, tears running down his face, making animal sounds of pain as his breath came back.

Jinn stopped the swinging and stroked his back with a feathery touch until he could uncurl and take his own weight again, though he could hardly stand. A hand closed on his prick and stroked up as Obi-Wan tried to pull away. He was still hard and Jinn’s electric touch made him moan as much as the tenderness of his organ did. They were inextricable.

“That was just to wake you up, boy. There’s a purpose to this, and it’s not your pleasure. Remember?”

Obi-Wan nodded, still gasping and speechless.

“Good. See I don’t have to remind you. Now stop sniveling. I’ve just started with you.”

He heard Jinn drop his belt, the metal buckle tinkling on the stone. A moment later something hard and prickly touched his shoulder and started down his back, scraping a broad, rough track over his skin. _The brush I use grooming my horses—now that alone would have you hopping soon enough._ This wasn’t in the script they’d discussed. He hadn’t asked for this, but he’d wondered about it at the time and wasn’t quite sure about it now, until Jinn started back down the same track again, a little harder. The third time, harder still, it felt like a thousand pins scratching just deep enough to bleed, raising fine welts. On top of the belt stripes it was like fire. It stung as his own sweat trickled into it. Methodically, Jinn covered every inch of his back from shoulders to arse and left it burning when he was done. Obi-Wan moaned, panting, looking longingly at the bucket of cool water Jinn had brought with him. He was sure that was the only thing that would cool his fevered skin.

Jinn started on Obi-Wan’s front, then, dragging the brush down hard over his chest, his nipples, his belly, down to his groin, just avoiding the tender, still-throbbing skin of his prick and only teasing his balls with the bristles. Trickles of sweat and blood ran down his torso and made him twist in the chains. Such a simple thing and yet, his skin felt like he’d been flayed, the air like acid on the tiny, shallow scratches, his skin one continuous, throbbing welt. He whimpered and writhed in the chains.

When he was done, Jinn stepped back again and watched him. “There, that’s got ye good and wound up now,” he observed. Sweat ran into Obi-Wan’s eyes, mixing with tears. “Make it stop! Make it stop!” he pleaded. Jinn let him writhe and whimper for a time as he watched, then he picked up his belt again.

There was no comparison. His skin already raw and throbbing, the belt bit into Obi-Wan as though it were serrated. He screeched and bucked away, swinging, when the first lash of heavy leather hit his back. Jinn steadied him and stepped back, laying another stripe across his shoulders. Another. And another, until his back was throbbing. “No! No! Gods! No!” he screamed. “Stop! Stop! Enough! No more! Please!” He was sobbing, pleading, dancing out of Jinn’s way and pulled back by his chains.

As usual, his prick betrayed him, and that’s what Jinn let guide him. He walked around front, looked first into Obi-Wan’s eyes, and then down at his cock, still standing eagerly to attention. Jinn took his chin in hand, pushed his thumb between Obi-Wan’s lips to stop his protests. “You still want it. You think you don’t, but you do. How many times have you told yourself this is the last time? But you’re not man enough to stop. Not man enough to face up to your own weakness.”

Obi-Wan looked away, ashamed. It was true. Jinn slapped him again, just hard enough to surprise him and get his attention. “Look at me! You won’t want it again when I’m done with you, boy. I’ll make sure of it.”

Jinn stepped away. “Watch me,” he demanded. “Watch it coming. Take what you deserve.”

Obi-Wan did. He watched Jinn’s arm draw back, the belt trailing, watched him throw it forward and flick it back to give it a snap, felt it bite into his chest across his nipples. He howled as it hit, at least as much in anticipation as actual pain. When it hit again, lower down, across his chest, then across his stomach, it was only the pain making him scream.

His body throbbed everywhere. Even the soles of his feet seemed to hurt. He was sobbing now, eyes and nose both running.

Jinn dropped the belt again and turned back to the satchel.

Obi-Wan suspected what was coming next and it both terrified and excited him unbearably. For the first time, fear coiled in his belly as it had before, as it always did. Fear and a sick thrill that set his stomach fluttering and his limbs shaking. He moaned and shuddered, seeing what Jinn lifted out of the satchel.

“An old friend, eh?” Jinn said, and trailed the thongs of the flail over his groin and up his chest, over his shoulder and down his back. There were no barbs on this one, at least. Jinn stepped behind him and Obi-Wan tensed, his muscles screaming in a way they hadn’t ten years ago in this position. He was getting too old for this.

“Aye, lad, we both are. And this is the last I’ll do it. Even for you. So you’d better learn this lesson, finally.”

_We can stop now_ , Obi-Wan thought desperately, though he managed to bite back the words. He’d been a fool to ask Jinn for this. _We can—_

“No, lad, we can’t,” Jinn said softly, answering his thoughts. “We’ll finish this and have done for good. Both of us.”

Jinn toed a wooden mounting block to his feet. “Up,” he said. “And bend over. Bend over like you did for that Chosen One of yours, to kiss his ass.” Obi-Wan obeyed, despite his trembling knees, despite his misgivings. It raised him a little above Jinn’s height until he leaned over. It wasn’t the lash he felt next, but a slick hand on his arse, slipping into his crack, a finger pushing into his hole. His legs shook as he realized what Jinn was going to do and the man’s arm went around his waist. Jinn held him as he roughly plunged one thick finger and then two inside, brushing that spot that made his whole groin and spine light up. Obi-Wan moaned as his cock jumped in response, throbbing in time with his wildly beating heart. Oh gods this was going to hurt. And Jinn was right: he wanted it. He wanted it, needed it, couldn’t wait for it. He pushed back, whining, desperate for the big fingers to spread him, open him, split him, fuck him. Jinn only took them away. “No! No . . .” Obi-Wan moaned. “More!”

“I’ve got summat more for you, lad, don’t worry,” Jinn growled.

Something big and blunt, bigger than Jinn’s two fingers, bigger than three, pressed against him, trying to breach him. He panicked and tried to struggle, but Jinn held him tight and dribbled oil down his crack, then worked the thing in, twisted and pushed—

Obi-Wan wailed as the ring of muscles in his arse gave way, and not easily, admitting the flail’s handle. Jinn had oiled it somewhat, but it was rough and ridged and his anus clamped down painfully hard around it as it slid in. “There’s a fine sight,” Jinn jeered. “A horse’s tail for a horse’s arse.” Obi-Wan hung his head and sank down shuddering, the needy, humiliated sobs caught in his throat. He deserved this. He did. He deserved it. He’d been such a fool and still was.

“Stand up!” Jinn ordered. “ You wanted this—take it like a man!” Obi-Wan’s legs trembled so hard he could barely keep his feet, but he obeyed. Jinn kicked the block out from under him and Obi-Wan went down again, knees giving way, pulling hard at his shoulders. The lashes of the flail in his arse swished against the backs of his thighs, just like a tail, as Jinn had said. His shoulders screamed and his arse clamped down around the handle, burning. It was a solid weight inside him, thick and hard, like being speared. It should have been his saber, business end first up his arse, not the flail. He knew that now. A quick touch of the Force to activate it—

Jinn went back to the satchel. Obi-Wan heard a jingle of metal and every muscle in his body clenched in a familiar and heady mixture of anticipation, desire, and terror. Jinn made him wait for it, gently twitching the flail to make its claws tinkle. Obi-Wan stood shivering and tense, waiting, waiting. . . .

Without warning, the second flail and its claws curled around his hip. Where they had merely pricked him that first time in Jinn’s skilled hands, this time they raked him, leaving long stripes of welt and blood from his groin to his arse, catching at the other flail and pulling a little. Obi-Wan screamed and thrashed, his already-burning skin erupting into blazing lines of agony. Jinn walked around him to his other side as he sobbed, tears and sweat and snot running down his face, hair matted against his skin, eyes swollen. The man’s hands trailed gently over his body, caressing, soothing, until Obi-Wan stopped moving. “The other side now,” Jinn said quietly, all the cruelty gone from his voice. “Ready?”

Obi-Wan nodded weakly, though he wasn’t ready. How could he be? How could anyone—

A swish, a snap and the flail clawed at him again, raking the other hip in nearly the same pattern. Red agony flared into his head as he kicked and jerked on the chain. Everything was red, like the light on Mustafar. He screamed again and couldn’t stop, even as he choked on his own tears, the air burning and acid in his throat. _It hurt it hurt it hurt_ —nothing had ever hurt like this, nothing, nothing—but he knew that wasn’t true. Anakin had hurt like this, lying in the black sands, limbs gone, stumps burning, consumed alive where Obi-Wan had left him, screaming out his hate and pain. Anakin—his padawan, his brother, his failure.

He was still weeping, but it wasn’t from the physical pain. “I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m sorry, Ani. I wasn’t . . . wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t save you—couldn’t save any . . . anyone . . .”

Jinn’s hands were on him again, on his perfectly happy, traitorous, upstanding prick, stroking him until the pain became an accessory to his arousal and his whole body was throbbing with agony and need. Jinn fucked him slowly with the flail handle, in the same rhythm he worked his prick: just enough to keep him on edge, not enough to let him come.

It was sheer misery.

He wanted so much he couldn’t think or see. He wanted the pain to end, he wanted to be fucked, he wanted to come, he wanted it all to stop. All of it, in finality. He wanted not to have to think any more. To erase his memory. To let go of his guilt and the past. He wanted sleep. He wanted death.

“Don’t be such a coward, boy. Any fool can kill himself. It takes a man to live with his mistakes.”

Obi-Wan shook his head blindly. “Can’t. Can’t. All those people—”

“One more, then,” Jinn said in his ear, almost tenderly, “to make you pay.”

This one, the last, laid him open from his shoulders to the top of his arse. He screamed until his voice was gone, even as Jinn pulled the flail handle out of him in one long, slow burn, even as he lifted Obi-Wan and speared him again on his own prick. “Move, damn you,” Jinn grunted. “Pull yourself up if you want to be fucked. Work for it.” And Obi-Wan sobbed as he did, because he still wanted it, hands clenched around the chains, pulling himself up as his shoulders burned and bled, while Jinn shoved him down with hands slick from the blood on his hips. Like he had the last time, Obi-Wan wrapped his feet around Jinn’s calves to give them both purchase. Jinn lifted him as he pulled himself up, shoved into him as they both pulled him down. Even after the flail handle, he felt he was being split in two. It wasn’t enough.

The thong between his wrists snapped.

Jinn caught him, pushed him down onto the stone floor and drove into him brutally, bruising and scraping his knees and elbows. His hand closed on Obi-Wan’s prick, squeezing and pulling.“Come for me! Come now, boy! This is what you wanted—” He rammed himself into Obi-Wan’s rectum, and raked his stiff beard across the cuts on Obi-Wan’s back. Pain blossomed through his body and Obi-Wan went up with a ragged scream, while Jinn emptied himself in a final thrust that speared him as the flail’s handle had.

 

There was no easy oblivion this time. There was only the sick throb of his wounds, and a roiling black hurricane inside him that he’d never felt before. _This is what the Dark feels like,_ he thought, _when you’ve given in._   He stayed on his knees, folded over, arms numb and shoulders screaming as though they still bore all his weight. Jinn sat back, his cock softening and slipping out as he cut Obi-Wan free of the bonds that remained around his wrists. Jinn curled back over him then, chest pressed against Obi-Wan’s raw back, still breathing hard. Obi-Wan was too; it took him a moment to realize it was actually sobs. A clutching pain welled up in his chest and pushed its way out of him in a howl he muffled in his hands. It clawed him inside like the flail had outside, ripping him apart. _Death. Destruction. Chaos. Rage._

Jinn’s hands ran slowly up and down his arms, rubbing them gently back into life. He kissed the back of Obi-Wan’s neck, nuzzled into his sweaty hair, murmuring. “It’s all right, lad. It’s all right. Let it go. Let it out. You’re in a safe place now. Let go.”

He did, finally, all the barriers he’d erected in his flight giving way, smashing down under the pain and punishment and Jinn’s kindness. It came out in a torrent, all the grief and anger he’d bottled up since leaving Mustafar. He howled as though Jinn were still beating him, shaking with the force of the emotions rushing through him. The release rocked him physically in something near to convulsions.

Jinn held on.

Somewhere in his consciousness, Obi-Wan was aware of what he was bleeding off into the Force, that it would go up like a beacon for anyone who cared to look. He tried to stifle it, afraid he’d bring bounty hunters—or worse, the Sith’s minions—down on this haven he’d found.

“No, let it go, lad,” Jinn said in a quiet voice, still holding him. “There’s no beacon, no way to find you. I’ve hidden us here. Get it all out. The Force will hold it all.”

But he was nearly emptied now, the storm inside him nothing but a stiff, cold wind blowing through, leaving just a small kernel of darkness behind, like the cinder of a burnt-out star. He shivered and Jinn pulled him upright carefully, moving away. Obi-Wan hissed as the air hit the gouges on his back.

“Hush, lad. I’ll take care of those. Can you sit up for a bit?”

Obi-Wan nodded, eyes still squeezed shut as he tried to get hold of himself again. He felt sick and weak and utterly, utterly empty.

Jinn beckoned the satchel to himself across the floor as easily as Obi-Wan himself might have done it. The bucket of water followed a moment later, levitated off the ground and set down within reach without spilling a drop.

“So you _can_ move objects,” Obi-Wan said, or tried to around his raw throat. Jinn dunked a cup in the bucket and passed it to him. Obi-Wan took a swallow and repeated his words.

“Parlor tricks,” Jinn replied, “but occasionally useful.” Jinn laid a hand on the side of the metal pail and a few moments later, steam began to curl from the water’s surface. Obi-Wan blinked, not sure he’d seen that. “Now, brace yourself, lad. This will hurt too.”

Obi-Wan felt something dabbing at his back and flinched as warm water ran into his cuts, feeding their fire. Jinn cleaned them carefully, making him kneel up so he could reach the ones on Obi-Wan’s arse, then started to spread salve over them.

Obi-Wan pulled away. “No. Leave it. Let it scar,” he said hoarsely, his throat still raw.

Jinn put a firm hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. “No. For one thing they won’t; they’re not that deep and they’re clean. For another, you’ve punished yourself enough, lad. And finally, I won’t have you bleeding all over my sheets. Now sit still while I finish, young fool.”

Chastened and too tired to fight, Obi-Wan did as he was told. When Jinn finished and helped him to his feet, there was hardly any pain at all, apart from the few bruises and muscle strains, and the soreness in his arse. Jinn pulled his nightshirt from the satchel. “Hold your arms out,” he said, and slipped the cloth over them and over Obi-Wan’s head, letting it fall around him. “Easier than getting dressed again. You’ll want to sleep, anyway, I think.”

Obi-Wan nodded, and followed Jinn out of the barn again, barefoot like a penitent. It seemed miles to the cabin, and miles to Jinn’s bed once they were inside. The man made him drink another glass of water and washed his feet for him before he climbed gingerly into bed. He lay down on his side, where there were fewest stripes, and felt sleep stealing over him already, though it was only late afternoon. Jinn covered him with the sheet and quilt, and stroked through his hair gently. “Sleep well, lad.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan mumbled, “for doing this again.”

Jinn said nothing but brushed the tips of his fingers over Obi-Wan’s cheek and turned away.

* * *

He woke in the night, fevered and trembling with chills. Jinn sat beside him in soft light, obviously woken from sleep himself, and put a hand on Obi-Wan’s forehead, frowning. He touched Obi-Wan’s back, and urged him over on his stomach, gently pulling up the nightshirt.

“Are you hurting, lad?” he asked in a quiet voice. “The stripes bothering you? Or your arse? Or your belly?”

Obi-Wan shook his head and then sneezed and started to cough.

“Ah, I see,” Jinn murmured, and got up to find him a handkerchief. “One trauma too many. We’ve worn you down, finally, and you’ve caught cold, poor lad. Well, I’ve summat for that.”

Obi-Wan dozed, or tried to between coughs and sneezes, as Jinn rummaged about elsewhere in the cabin. A short time later he came back with a steaming mug. He propped pillows against the headboard as Obi-Wan sat up, then handed him the mug. “Drink this.”

“This” was some kind of herbal tea, laced with honey and a good dash of Jinn’s whiskey, and it warmed Obi-Wan through. Done with it, he huddled back under the covers while Jinn piled an extra quilt on him. Very quickly, the chills dissipated and he was asleep again almost before Jinn climbed back in beside him. Before he drifted off again, though, he felt Jinn curl up around him and nestled back against the larger man. Jinn’s arms went around him snugly and he kissed the back of Obi-Wan’s neck. For the first time in longer than he could say, Obi-Wan felt unafraid, if not yet at peace.

When he woke the next morning, the bed was empty, as usual. Warm sunlight streamed in through the window and across the bed, though there was a definite feeling of autumn to the air coming in through the slightly open window. His cold wasn’t gone, by any means, but he suspected it was far milder than it might have been, though his head still felt as though it were stuffed with duracrete and his throat was raw. He padded into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and was surprised to meet Jinn there, reading, with a mug of his own.

“I didn’t want to leave you alone this morning,” he said by way of explanation. “How do you feel, lad?”

“Better than I should, I suspect,” Obi-Wan said hoarsely, and coughed a little. Despite the cold and the mild muscle aches, he felt oddly better, as though he’d been drained of some poison—and perhaps he had. There had been no dreams during the night.

“Sit, lad, and I’ll get you some tea. You should stay in bed, at least for the day.”

Obi-Wan sat down gingerly, expecting a great deal of discomfort and finding, instead, very little. “I don’t know what’s in the that salve of yours, but it’s nearly miraculous,” he said. “It makes bacta seem second-rate.”

Jinn smiled mysteriously. “It’s an anti-infective, lad. That’s all. The same stuff I put on your palm.”

It took him a moment to twig to Jinn’s secret. “Where did you learn Force healing?”

“Here and there, a bit from each of my teachers. I’ve become something of an herbalist here, too—the one place I’ve had enough time to study the local plants.”

“I’m beginning to think you’ve learned a great deal more than I have as a Jedi.”

“Not more,” Jinn shook his head. “Just with a different focus. But frankly, your stripes aren’t what I’m worried about. You didn’t dream last night.”

“No,” Obi-Wan said slowly, examining his own feelings. “I didn’t. I . . . I’m not sure how I feel. Emptied out. Hollow. Lighter.”

Jinn nodded, seeming satisfied. “Give it time. We’ve lanced the wound and drained it. Now it has to heal.”

Obi-Wan nodded and sipped his tea—more of the herbal-honey-whiskey mixture. Warmth spread through him as he drank it and made him sleepy again. Jinn made him a light meal and then sent him back to bed again.

He slept through most of the day and woke only when Jinn brought him a bowl of soup or a cup of tea. It didn’t seem long before it was dark out again and Jinn was slipping back into bed beside him once more. Obi-Wan rolled over toward him and Jinn pulled him close, tucking Obi-Wan under his chin, their legs entangled, as though they were old lovers. He fell asleep again with a sense of security he was surprised to realize he’d lost long before the Temple had been destroyed. There were no dreams that night, either.

He woke early, while Jinn was still asleep himself, cold reduced to mild sniffles. One of Jinn’s  arms was curled around his waist, the other hand around the top of his head, which made Obi-Wan smile. Asleep, limned by the early morning light, Jinn’s face seemed younger and Obi-Wan wondered again how old he was. _Older than I look but younger than I am_ , he’d said. Right now, Obi-Wan would have guessed about fifty or fifty-five, a man still in his prime. If he’d traveled with the Aing-Tii though . . . well, he could be anything: a hundred years older or decades younger. No one else had ever discovered how the Aing-Tii traveled through time, but it was known they did, though how much they meddled in its events was the subject of some debate. Obi-Wan decided it didn’t really matter. Jinn—Qui-Gon—was one-of-a-kind and Obi-Wan knew he was falling in love with him.

So this was what attachment felt like, he thought, beginning to understand a little better Anakin’s fear of losing Padme. He wasn’t afraid of that; he’d lost everyone already. Now he had a blank slate, a chance to make corrections and changes. Maybe even to make the Jedi something better, with the help of this man and all he knew.

He brushed a fall of bronze hair from Qui-Gon’s face and traced his broken nose lightly. Jinn’s eyes fluttered open and a slow smile lifted one side of his mouth. Obi-Wan traced the lips with his thumb, cupping Qui-Gon’s face in one hand.

“Morning, lad,” Jinn murmured and kissed his thumb.

Obi-Wan leaned in for a real kiss, which Jinn was happy to give him, pulling him closer in a tight grip. Obi-Wan smiled against his mouth and sank into the kiss, morning breath and all. Something blossomed in his chest, something that wasn’t, for a change, pain or grief: a sense of rightness and contentment. Something that would turn into a deeper love with a little time and careful nurturing. It was still a fragile thing and he wasn’t sure Jinn shared it, but there was time enough to see, and no reason not to. If he was not a Jedi anymore, then the prohibition on attachments no longer applied either. It seemed pointless now. Much of the Code did.

“Sweet lad,” Jinn murmured, nuzzling his ear and kissing down his neck. Obi-Wan tilted his head back, wanting more, and Jinn obliged, the light nibbles and pecks sending shivers through Obi-Wan.

They made love without any sense of urgency and with none of the violence of their last encounter. Jinn stripped him tenderly of his nightshirt, mouth following his hands as they moved upward, lingering over his nipples but not biting, finally coming back to his mouth. As they kissed again, Qui-Gon reached for him, gathering both of them in hand. Obi-Wan gasped at the velvet glide of Qui-Gon’s cock against his own. He could feel both their hearts beating in the big veins.

“Good, lad?” Jinn murmured.

“Gods yes!” Obi-Wan hissed, head thrown back. Jinn traced the line of his throat with a finger and the head of his cock with his other thumb, making Obi-Wan shudder in pleasure. He worked them both for a while as Obi-Wan’s hands roamed his body, until the younger man was thrusting into Jinn’s hand. Jinn rolled them over then and pressed him down into the bed, moving against him. It wasn’t long before Obi-Wan bucked up against him and came in a sweet but unspectacular orgasm. A moment later, Jinn followed, groaning, and rolled off him, leaving them both sticky and ripe with each other’s spunk.

They lay side by side for a moment, panting, until Jinn got up and came back with a damp cloth. They cleaned each other up and Jinn settled back into bed, seeming disinclined to get up just yet.

“Lovely way to wake up,” Obi-Wan said finally.

“It’s very easy to please you, Ben,” Qui-Gon chuckled.

“So I’ve been told,” Obi-Wan admitted with a smile.

“Have you, now? And who said that?”

“Other lovers, the few I’ve had.”

“Men or women?” Jinn asked curiously. “Unless that’s none of my business.”

“After what else we’ve done together, I hardly think so,” Obi-Wan said wryly. “Both, actually. I don’t seem to lean in any one direction.”

“Doubles your opportunities,” Jinn agreed. “Although you’re the first man in a long while. Since the last you were here, as a matter of fact.”

“My last—Siri—she was killed on Azure, almost two years ago. We hadn’t had much time together before that. We’d been good friends for years though.”

“But just recently lovers,” Jinn concluded. “I’m sorry, lad. Another Jedi?”

Obi-Wan nodded. It was hard to believe two years had passed. Siri’s death had pushed him near the dark side, too close for comfort. The desire for vengeance was such a strong emotion. . . .

Jinn touched his face. “All right?” he asked.

Obi-Wan shook himself and nodded. “Yes. It’s not like it was. Not quite as it should be but—”

“Give yourself time, Ben. You’ve a world of grief to get through.” Jinn traced his eyebrow and the soft skin beneath his eyes. “I’ll help as much as I can.”

“You already have. More than I had a right to ask.”

Jinn put a finger to his lips. “Hush, you. That’s done. I still mean what I said the first time we met.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan whispered.

Jinn kissed him gently and sat up on the side of the bed. “Now, layabout, I’ve work to do. I could use some help if you feel up to it.”

* * *

In the days that followed, they fell back into a comfortable routine of work and teaching. Qui-Gon quickly learned the katas from Obi-Wan, his earlier training standing him in good stead. Within a few months, as fall came in around them and the weather cooled, they started sparring with wooden swords that Jinn made, which mimicked the shape and weight of his steel swords. Jinn was a challenging partner; his height and reach made Obi-Wan work hard to sharpen his rusty skills, even as Jinn’s reflexes began to quicken as he learned to rely more and more on the Force to guide him.

At the same time, Jinn began to teach Obi-Wan what he’d learned, much of which was far outside of his own training. As Obi-Wan suspected, Jinn’s ability to move objects was highly refined. He had an extremely well-honed danger sense that included being able to read the weather days in advance with no instruments to speak of. His capabilities in the more esoteric skills were easily those of a master; he’d obviously spent years honing and refining them. And Obi-Wan started working his way through Jinn’s library, fascinated by what he found. He almost felt he’d been given a gift to have time to study these texts he never would have seen otherwise. Reading through them, it seemed to him there was a great deal the Jedi had forgotten or ignored; perhaps that was part of the balance they’d lost.

The dreams still came to him, but only now and then, and he was able to work his own way out of them without Jinn’s help. He still grieved for the people he’d lost, but the guilt was no longer a crushing burden. What was done was done and he was learning to live with that, and to start thinking of the future. A few months into Obi-Wan’s stay, when half the trees were bare, Jinn asked him whether he’d decided to stay or to move on.

“You’re welcome here, Ben. I’d be sorry to see you go. But the choice is up to you. You must do what you feel is right.” They were sitting at the table, finishing up the evening meal. Jinn had taken out his pipe and topped up his beer.

Obi-Wan had been thinking about just this question for a long time, whether it was safe to stay—not for him but for Qui-Gon and the others in the village, some of whom he was becoming friendly with. They treated him much as they did Jinn: cordially, but as someone who was still an outsider, which was probably just as well. There’d been some gossip about the two of them, when Obi-Wan’s residence stretched out to months and not days or even weeks, but the talk had died down fairly quickly. Most of the locals were glad enough to have a good mechanic in residence, as Erinea had said.

“I’d like to stay, Qui-Gon, if you’ll have me,” Obi-Wan replied. “I don’t want to be a danger to you or the village, but I think it might be easier for Yoda and any others who are left to find me again if I stay here. I think we have much to learn from each other, too.” He reached across the table and took Jinn’s hand, smiling when Jinn closed his fingers around his own. “And I find I’ve grown quite fond of you.”

“Fond? Is that all?” Jinn teased, eyes sparkling.

“More than fond, you old rascal. You know that.”

“I do, lad. You know I feel the same.” Qui-Gon squeezed his hand and let out a deep breath. “I’m glad you’re staying, Ben, but there’s summat I should tell you. Things I couldn’t tell you before, though they might have eased your burden. Remember the first time we met each other, I said I’d seen you in my visions?” Obi-Wan nodded, listening intently. “That wasn’t exactly the truth. Well, it was, from a certain point of view. When I traveled with the Aing-Tii, I saw you then, not in my visions—the rest I told you of those was true. But I saw you in the future. I saw you here, with me.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan murmured. “That’s why you offered this . . . refuge.”

“Not the only reason. The Aing-Tii sent me here to do that. But I had my own motives.”

“The Aing-Tii sent you? I thought they didn’t interfere—”

“Not directly, and not often. We saw what was happening, the probabilities. The likelihood is that your apprentice would have become what he did no matter who his teacher had been.”

Obi-Wan sank his head into his hands and pushed them through his hair. “So this is what bringing balance to the Force is.”

“There’s no light without shadow, lad. And no shadow without light. The light’s been burning quite brightly for some time now. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.”

“Maybe that’s what the Jedi forgot, if we ever really knew it.”

“Maybe that’s what you need to make sure they remember in the future, Ben.”

Obi-Wan looked up. “And what were your reasons for coming here?”

Jinn’s face went solemn. “To save you. Even before I knew you, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you to despair.”

Obi-Wan was silent for a time. “It seems foolish now, but I think I would have taken that road if not for you. You saw that?”

“It was one of the probabilities. And there were others where we were together before this. Where I was a Jedi and you were my apprentice.”

Obi-Wan blinked. “That . . . almost . . .  feels . . . right.”

Jinn nodded. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“So how old are you, Master Jinn? And don’t tell me _younger than I look and older than I am_ , or some such nonsense.”

Jinn laughed. “It’s the other way round, actually. That’s the trouble with traveling with the Aing-Tii. Chronological age tends to get lost in the by-way. I’ve been a century into the future and as much into the past with them, but I’m fifty-six or thereabouts, chronologically. Near as I can tell, anyways.”

“Not so much between us then—just 119 years,” Obi-Wan grinned. “Unless the travel into the past cancels that out.”

“One of us is cradle-robbing, regardless. Let’s just call it two decades and be done with it. You make me feel twenty years younger anyway.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m staying,” Obi-Wan replied smugly.

“It is,” Jinn agreed.

* * *

They settled into winter contentedly. Obi-Wan learned to bake bread, though Jinn banned him from the kitchen after sampling his cooking. Qui-Gon began sketching out plans for a bath house set into the woods behind his workshops, near a small brook that ran all summer. They started building it in the spring, when they weren’t working for anyone in the village. By early fall it was finished and the following winter they trekked out to it regularly to soak in the steaming wooden tub and roll in the snow afterwards, chasing each other back to the cabin still naked and steaming in the cold air.

They continued their mutual studies, though Obi-Wan began to feel he was getting the better end of the bargain. Qui-Gon knew so much Obi-Wan had never imagined. Some of it was hardly credible, and yet it rang true, coming from Qui-Gon.

“You mean there’s a way to retain one’s identity after one passes into the Force?” Obi-Wan said incredulously one evening. He’d worked his way about halfway through the numerous volumes of _The Journals of the Whills,_ and Qui-Gon had given him more details of his time with a Whills shaman.

Qui-Gon nodded, wonder shining in his own eyes. “The shaman I’d learned it from had achieved it, but he seemed to be the only one. It requires a completely selfless sense of compassion. I don’t know if I’ll ever achieve it.”

“I don’t doubt you will,” Obi-Wan replied, “but please wait a while before you complete the experiment. I want you to teach me, too.”

Qui-Gon smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

The following spring, almost two years after Obi-Wan’s bedraggled arrival, he opened the door to another traveler, this one not so bedraggled but clearly not another would-be homesteader.

“About damn time! I had a hell of a time finding you,” were the first words out of the tattooed and dreadlocked figure on the doorstep. Before he could get anything else out, Obi-Wan had dragged him inside by his shirtfront, closed the door behind him, and pulled him into a crushing hug.

“Quin! You bastard! You’re alive!” he yelled, pounding the man’s back. They laughed and shoved each other around the room as they inspected one other. Jinn watched in amusement, leaning against the sink. When they’d calmed down sufficiently, Qui-Gon offered Quinlan Vos a beer and sat down to hear his story.

He and his wife Khaleen and son Korto were on Kashyyyk for now along with Tholme and a few other Jedi who’d survived the initial purge, safe for the time being. But they were all afraid they wouldn’t be safe there for much longer. Yoda, who had traveled from his hidey hole on Dagobah to establish contact with all the Jedi he could find, agreed. The Skywalker boy would have to be moved.

“Yoda’s asked you to take him, Obi-Wan. Korto’s going to miss him, but I think Yoda’s right, and so does Tholme.” Vos nodded in Jinn’s direction. “Between the two of you, he should be safe. If I had trouble  finding you, it won’t be easy for anyone else.”

“How did you find us, finally?” Qui-Gon asked, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“I had a sense of where Kenobi had been at the port but lost it. Nobody remembered you,” he went on, addressing Obi-Wan, “which is a good thing. I looked at a map of the settlements and made a wild guess. Well, a couple, actually. There was no sign of you in the first three places I checked, but in the last one, I caught a hint of you at the inn, on a beer mug, of all things.”

Qui-Gon’s eyebrows rose. “You read objects? That’s quite a talent.”

“Not always a fun one to have, either. But finding your signature on that glass, Obi—that was the best news I’d had in a year or more, that you were really alive.”

“You didn’t believe Yoda?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Even he wasn’t sure. You’re well-hidden here. There’s no sense of you in the Force at all, unless it’s on an object.”

Obi-Wan threw Qui-Gon a quick look and Jinn sat back in his chair. “Tholme was your master?” he asked. Quin nodded once, eyes narrowing. “I met him years ago, on Farrgho’s Moon. When you see him again, tell him Qui-Gon Jinn sends his thanks for the kick in the arse he gave me. That’s why you couldn’t find us. And why no one will know you’re here now.”

“You’re hiding us?”

“Aye. Thanks to the chewing out your master gave me, I learnt a few things.”

“Huh,” Vos snorted. “I’ll be damned.”

“Probably,” Obi-Wan agreed cheerfully, unable to quell his joy at seeing Quinlan’s face again.

They talked far into the night, catching up on news of the new Empire’s increasing repression, the continuing manhunts for Jedi, the ones Quin and Yoda had found in the meanwhile. Qui-Gon made a bed up for Quin on the couch in front of the hearth, when they were all finally too tired to talk. Obi-Wan got a raised eyebrow from Quin as he headed back to the bedroom with Qui-Gon, and returned it with a wink.

Vos stayed for a few days and when he left, Obi-Wan went with him, to bring back his “orphaned nephew.” Qui-Gon had quickly agreed Luke would be far safer with the two of them than on Kashyyyk, and seemed to be looking forward to the boy’s arrival. When Obi-Wan left, Jinn was already sketching out an addition to the cabin that would be Luke’s room, and promised to build a bed for him in the meanwhile.

 

Just shy of a month later, a few hours before dusk one early summer day, Obi-Wan stepped back inside the cabin with a travel pack and an armful of sleepy toddler. “And this is where we live,” Obi-Wan said. “Say hello to your Uncle Qui, Luke.”

The boy looked around with wide eyes from the hearth to the mammoth stove, to Qui-Gon sitting at the table with his pipe and book and a mug of tea. “Hello,” Luke said shyly, and hid his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder. Obi-Wan smiled and rubbed his back comfortingly, then kissed the boy’s temple.

“Hello, my lads,” Qui-Gon rumbled gently, smiling. “Welcome home.”


End file.
